Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Ah, ok I was missing the definition of coastFIRE, mainly that it relies solely on investment returns.

Given that I have no faith in the stock market returning 4% per year I pretty obviously don't think that relying on that is a good idea.

But I see what Jacob is saying now since he is arguing using the assumptions and conclusions of the Trinity Study.



To me this comes down how confident you are in your skill as an investor. If you've got a proven track record you are confident in, then it makes sense that you could coast to FI on returns.

From a working perspective, your new job is managing your investments so it makes sense that you could have a savings rate with that return.


And ya, I think this strategy is more interesting and feasible with semi-ERE, but I agree that since you are dialing up the knob of "work" it's hard to argue that you are coasting.

If you are using the semi-ERE + investment returns strategy, what you are gaining is increased optionality and robustness. If you end up having favorable market conditions, you could possibly dial down work in periods where you realize those returns and conversely dial up work when the market is down to take advantage of favorable conditions (of course this flies in the face of @WFJ's strategy, so it basically assumes that the market and available job opportunities aren't that correlated).

Also, super agree with Jacob's point about semi-ERE and absolute numbers. Part of the reason I wrote my semi-ERE stuff on this forum and also called it semi-ERE and not semi-FIRE is bc most of my conclusions assume low or very low COL to begin with. I don't think this is totally necessary for semi-ERE in general or for some of the arguments I make for semi-ERE to hold true, but I agree that absolute amounts come into play more with semi-ERE.

2Birds1Stone wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:47 am

If you're working to earn 2X COL then by definition you're working vs. coasting....regardless of the absolute values.

Yes, that is not untrue (although one could argue the devil is on absolute values).

However, my previous post does not look to just tweak CoastFiIRE (which, contrarily to Semi-ERE*, has a specific definition) while still keeping the name. Taking the broader Semi-ERE perspective, it discards it "on principle" for not being resilient enough (if the goal is to achieve FI, otherwise, having reached your CoastFIRE number per yearly CoL and age is certainly not a bad place to be) and for being overly dependent on market/portfolio returns.

Jin+Guice wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 12:25 pm

To me this comes down how confident you are in your skill as an investor. If you've got a proven track record you are confident in, then it makes sense that you could coast to FI on returns.
From a working perspective, your new job is managing your investments so it makes sense that you could have a savings rate with that return.

True, if you are confident in investing skills and are taking an active investing route, (the way Dave has exemplified it I think, without other forms of work even, PT or otherwise), then it can make sense.

However, I think we can agree all these SomethingFIRE variations generally have passive index investing (+bonds) in mind. Some graphs even assume a fixed compounding/returns rate to say: "And once you've reached that point, you just have to sit back, [work PT], and wait x years for your principle to automagically reach FI, That's the magic of compounding, see?".

SimpleLife wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 03, 2015 10:25 pm

My idea of coasting to FI would be to move overseas for 5-10 years or however many years it would take for my assets to compound to a million or two and then move back to the US. Party it up on a dirt cheap budget with a 1% withdrawal rate and let your assets compound and then come back to a normal US lifestyle as a millionaire after letting compounding do the work for you while you party it up. Too bad I can't relax and could never pull this off, lol.

You said it better than I could have. This was also my plan until I found DW and she would never do something like this

prudentelo wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:23 am

@WFJ: interesting strategy

I understand logic if you dont have the job right now. Why work hard to find the job when it's hard?

But if you already have the job, now is the best time to keep it? Did timing just occur by accident, that you lost jobs when markets crashed? (I guess not full accident...)

I've always had a "If someone gave you $10 million today (some kind of windfall) what would you do?" plan ready to execute. My performance at all jobs is usually in a tight band and once my performance reviews fall or I have to fill out an action plan/review or something like that, I use my time to start executing my windfall plan rather than fight to stay employed in a bad situation. Economic conditions have determine almost all my time off periods, not by my design. BTW, I'm off now and have no plans to return to work for years...

Here is a case study of an issue with semiERE without a stash: Pedal2Petal's money crisis when his website income went down.

Notable points (if I'm reading the story correctly):

• It appears he only had one year of expenses saved at the time, so apparently he had chosen not to accumulate to FI eventually. (This matches what he says in his intro post about quitting as soon as his "passive" website income was greater than his COL.)
• He had three income streams at the time, but only one that paid at least COL per year. One of the non-COL-paying streams happened to increase to the necessary level while he was trying to avert the crisis on his original COL income stream.
• He found the experience difficult, but had a good attitude about it. ("I don't ask for fewer burdens, but a stronger back.")
• He was thinking about going back to work when this happened and afterward. He didn't post afterward, so who knows what he decided.