When Andy Hill first came across the FIRE movement through podcasts, it seemed to offer a solution to a major problem in his life.
“I felt so passionate about leaving my corporate job. I was missing out on my kids growing up,” Hill, whose marketing career involved long days and travel, told Business Insider. “The solution that I had found was the FIRE movement.”
The core principles of the financial independence, retire early movement — disciplined saving and consistent investing — aligned with his strengths. As a goal-oriented person, Hill said, he appreciated that FIRE offered a clear roadmap: save a majority of your income and invest it in low-cost index funds.
“I got jacked up about it,” he said. “I thought, ‘Max out your 401(k)? I can do that. Check. Max out your Roth IRA? I can do that. Check.'”
The problem was that he hadn’t fully discussed the FIRE lifestyle with his wife, Nicole, who began to feel the trade-offs. Maxing their retirement accounts meant they couldn’t max out other areas of their lives — things like hiring a housekeeper, paying for subscriptions they enjoyed, or going out to dinner when they wanted.
“She started to slowly see that my maxing of future wealth was taking away current enjoyment,” Hill said. She was on board with creating time freedom, but not at the expense of “hating today.”
The tension led to a string of financial disagreements that eventually culminated in what Hill calls “our volcano fight.” After that, they knew they had to make a change.
Pivoting to Coast FIRE: A ‘middle ground’ strategy
The Hills’ compromise was to pivot to an offshoot of the FIRE movement, Coast FIRE.
Hill describes Coast FIRE as a “middle ground” strategy — a way to capture some of the benefits of financial independence, like stepping back from a demanding corporate career, without the aggressive savings requirements of traditional FIRE.
Coast FIRE involves front-loading your investments. The idea is to build a portfolio large enough that, if left untouched, it can grow through compound interest and eventually reach your retirement goal without additional contributions.
Once you hit your Coast FIRE number, you can reduce or stop saving for retirement and redirect that money toward other priorities. You’ll still need to bring in income to cover your day-to-day expenses, but the heavy lifting of funding retirement is already done.
Using a compound interest calculator, the Hills determined they would need about $550,000 invested by age 40 to reach Coast FIRE. Assuming a 6% annual rate of return, that balance could grow to roughly $2 million by retirement age.
“And that was plenty for us to live on,” Hill said.
The Hills had already done much of the heavy lifting through years of aggressive saving and investing. By around 2020, they had reached their target and began scaling back their retirement contributions before eventually stopping them altogether.
Even so, their portfolio has continued to grow, said Hill: “The balance has grown from around $550,000 in 2021 when we stopped to closer to $1 million without any further contributions.”
Business Insider confirmed the couple’s near-seven-figure portfolio by reviewing screenshots of their Vanguard accounts.
Reaching Coast FIRE has completely changed the Hills’ lifestyle. Andy left his corporate job in 2020 and went all-in on Marriage Kids and Money, the personal finance platform he started as a blog in 2016. He now aims to work just 20 to 25 hours a week and, more recently, has limited his schedule to Tuesdays through Thursdays. Nicole has adopted a similar schedule. She works part-time as an aesthetician on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
“We’ve both been doing this three-day workweek, and it has been fantastic for our marriage,” Hill said. “We spend a lot more time together.”
Plus, Hill said he’s never felt healthier: “I was supposed to be on some cholesterol meds, and now my doctor says I don’t need them anymore. I feel fantastic, and it’s because we’ve given ourselves this margin in life where we’re not rushing from thing to thing to thing. We have time to think about what’s best for us.”
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