By the time Jessica Fick turned 31, she had hit a financial turning point: her retirement savings had grown large enough that she could potentially stop contributing altogether.
Rather than keep funneling cash into investment accounts, Fick could allow the money she had already set aside to compound on its own for the next several decades.
The approach is called coast FI, short for coast financial independence, and it is becoming increasingly popular with younger Americans looking for an alternative to spending their careers chasing bigger paychecks solely to secure retirement.
Unlike the more widely known FIRE movement — financial independence, retire early — coast FI does not necessarily require walking away from work decades ahead of schedule.
Instead, the concept is simple: once a person has saved enough in retirement accounts, those investments may be able to grow to the desired retirement goal over time without any additional contributions.
When it works, coast FI can give people the freedom to work fewer hours, take a lower-paying job, change careers, start a business or simply enjoying the life they are living today.
Fick is 39 now and living in New Hampshire, but eight years ago she realized that the $300,000 she had saved could potentially grow to almost $3 million by age 65 if it returned an average of 7 percent annually – and she wouldn’t even have to save one more dollar.
The idea came at a particularly important moment. About a year before discovering coast FI, she had left a six-figure corporate job after suffering severe burnout.
At 31, Jessica Fick realized she had reached a financial milestone that could potentially allow her to stop aggressively saving for retirement
Fick had been working in human resources, and much of her identity had been bound up in professional success.
Eventually she realized she didn’t want to spend her life working all week only to spend evenings, weekends and vacations recovering from her job.
‘I had already built a solid foundation by saving and investing consistently throughout my twenties,’ Fick told the Daily Mail.
‘That’s what made coast FI so powerful for me,’ she said. ‘It helped me realize that the savings I’d accumulated weren’t just preparing me for retirement someday. They could actually give me options much sooner.’
Rather than returning immediately to another demanding corporate role, Jessica took a part-time HR position at a nonprofit.
The job paid considerably less, but it gave her something she had been missing: time and balance. Then, in 2019, she discovered Coast FI while researching financial independence.
‘It showed me that once you’ve saved enough for your retirement investments to grow on their own, you don’t necessarily have to keep optimizing for the highest salary,’ she said.
‘Instead, you have the freedom to make career decisions based on what matters most to you.’
The discovery gave Fick the confidence not to increase her working hours simply to earn more. Instead, she began experimenting with a different future.
Fick and her husband had around $300,000 saved when they realized they had reached their own coast FI milestone. They now run their own business together
In 2020, Fick launched The Fioneers, a business focused on financial independence and lifestyle design, while continuing to work part-time.
By 2021, the business had grown enough for her to leave her nonprofit job and work on it full-time. Fick’s husband eventually joined her, leaving his own job in 2023.
Later that year, the couple decided to take the full coast FI approach and stopped contributing to their retirement accounts. They had $300,000 saved, but Fick stresses that everyone has to set their own coast FI goal based on their own needs and preferences.
The amount depends on factors including your age, anticipated retirement lifestyle, spending needs and assumptions about investment returns.
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These factors can change. Inflation, healthcare costs, market downturns and major life events such as having children or buying a home could all alter someone’s financial needs decades down the line.
Fick views coast FI as a planning tool rather than a guarantee. The real benefit, she believes, is what happens psychologically when people realize they have built a robust financial cushion.
‘Many people assume they need far more money than they actually do before they have options,’ Fick told us.
‘Calculating your coast FI number can help you see where you stand and what opportunities might already be within reach.’
Her own experience illustrates exactly what those options can look like. Today, Fick and her husband continue to run The Fioneers because they genuinely enjoy the work – not to maximize their income.
Their earnings vary from year to year because they are business owners, but they have deliberately designed their spending around what matters most to them.
They own their home and car outright, while their biggest expenses tend to be home improvements and travel.
The couple also work part-time and spend several months each year travelling in their campervan. For Fick, that’s the real point of coast FI.
The amount needed to reach Coast FI depends on factors including someone’s age, desired retirement lifestyle, spending needs and assumptions about investment returns
‘It isn’t just about reaching a financial milestone,’ she told us. ‘It’s about creating a life you don’t want to retire from.’
Fick believes younger workers should focus not only on calculating how much they need for retirement, but also consider what they want their lives to look like before they stop working.
‘What kind of life do I want? What does success actually look like to me? If money weren’t the deciding factor, how would I want to spend my time?’ she said.
There’s no need to wait until hitting your coast FI number to start making changes.
Fick suggests experimenting with smaller lifestyle changes, such as reducing working hours, trying freelancing, taking up a new hobby, volunteering or simply making more time for family and friends.
She also does not believe everyone needs to stop investing once they reach coast FI. For some people, the milestone may simply mean reducing their contributions rather than stopping them altogether.
The concept has gained wider attention as younger Americans grapple with high living costs, an uncertain job market and growing doubts about what traditional retirement will look like.
Coast FI is frequently discussed alongside FIRE, which has traditionally focused on saving aggressively enough to leave the workforce decades before the usual retirement age. But Fick feels that coast FI is less all-or-nothing.
‘You don’t have to wait until you’ve reached coast FI to start moving in that direction,’ she said.
‘No matter where you are on your financial journey, you can begin taking small steps and running little experiments to learn what brings you energy and fulfillment.’
For Fick, the journey began with burnout and an unexpected career detour. What initially felt like a professional crisis ultimately gave her the opportunity to reconsider what she wanted from work and money.
Her hope now is that other people will realize they may have more choices than they think.
‘My goal isn’t just to help people reach Coast FI,’ she said. ‘It’s to help them use money as a tool to intentionally create lives that reflect their values.’
And that, she argues, may be the biggest attraction of all.