James Chen & Priya Mehta
Saved hard early. Now retirement at 60 is already funded.
Retirement at 60 is already funded
See how they made it work ↓
The story
James and Priya did the classic Coast FIRE thing in their late twenties without calling it that. They lived well below their means, piled money into super and index funds, and got to a point where time mattered more than contributions. Once their daughter arrived, they deliberately changed the objective.
Today James works full-time in product design, Priya works four days a week as a physio, and the household budget is much looser than it used to be. Their investable assets are no longer exploding upward because they are not trying to maximise every dollar. That is the point. Coast FIRE for them means retirement at 60 is already handled, even if the high-savings phase is over.
What FIRE means to them
Less pressure right now. They are not trying to quit next year. They want the freedom to say yes to a shorter work week, a pricier family holiday, or a rough income year without feeling like retirement gets pushed off a cliff.
Retirement plans
They expect to keep working in some form for a long time, but on friendlier terms. Full retirement around 60 is the shared anchor. After that, they want time split between Brisbane and Melbourne, long school-holiday trips while their daughter is still home, and a house that feels paid for rather than optimised.
Key challenge
The stress test is lifestyle inflation. Their spending is now around $132k because childcare, mortgage repayments, and family life are real costs. The question is whether they still have enough front-loaded capital to coast to 60 without reopening the old aggressive-saving playbook.
The numbers
What is Coast FIRE?
Coast FIRE means you've saved enough that, even without adding another dollar, compounding alone will grow your portfolio to your FIRE number by traditional retirement age. You've 'front-loaded' your savings and can now direct your income to enjoying life today. The key insight: time is the most powerful variable in compound growth.
The projection
Monte Carlo check
The base case reaches FIRE early, but only 85% of futures hit the plan by age 60.
Annual income sources in retirement
Stacked bars show where income comes from each year. Line shows target expenses.
Bars above the red line indicate surplus spending capacity (SWR floor > expenses)
Key insights
That's 5 years after FIRE. The non-super portfolio must bridge this gap entirely.
Priya works 5 more years, covering ~44% of household expenses during James & Priya's early retirement.
Eliminates ~$42k/year in housing costs, freeing cash for investments.
A savings rate above 30% is the engine that powers early retirement. Every dollar saved today compounds for decades.
Key takeaway
Coast FIRE is not about retiring tomorrow. It is about removing the need to keep sprinting. James and Priya already did the hardest saving years, so compounding and employer super can do the rest while they spend more of their current income on the life they actually want.
What James & Priya did next
The useful discovery was not that they could probably stop in their mid-fifties. It was that they no longer needed to organise their entire household around squeezing out more savings.
The deterministic projection reached FIRE at 55 if everything held together. The more important result was that age 60 stayed viable without extra super contributions, which meant the household could stay in Coast mode instead of dropping back into accumulation mode.
James took the signal and moved to a nine-day fortnight. Priya kept four days because she likes the work and the flexibility. The portfolio is no longer the centre of the family. That is exactly what Coast FIRE was meant to buy.
The Coast FIRE moment
James & Priya front-loaded the hard saving years. With $529k already built across super, investments, and cash, the portfolio had 24 more years to compound toward $1.8M without needing an aggressive savings rate from here.