A Coast FIRE plan has one unusual property: it has a finish line. Once your portfolio reaches the number where compound growth alone carries it to retirement, the savings engine can shut down. That makes the road to the number the entire game — and a checklist is how you keep from drifting.
This one is organized in four phases, each with concrete, checkable items rather than aspirations. "Build wealth" is not checkable. "Emergency fund at 6 months of expenses" is. Run through your current phase top to bottom; an item you can't check off is your next project, not your next resolution.
Not financial advice. The age ranges and percentages are planning heuristics, not prescriptions. Your numbers depend on your income, your spending, and your risk tolerance. See our editorial policy.
A checklist only works if the inputs are honest. Before you check anything off, sit down with three numbers: your current net worth, your fixed monthly costs (the ones that would still be due if you went to bed for a month), and the savings rate you actually achieved last year — not the one you intended.
Most Coast FIRE plans die at the estimate stage, not the execution stage. People use their planned savings rate, their expected return, and their intended spending, and the plan is beautiful and wrong. The checklist below assumes you've done the honest pass first.
Also check one thing that isn't on this page: your health insurance situation. If you're independent contractor, self-employed, or on a plan that ends with your job, your "expenses" number is meaningfully different from someone with employer coverage, and it changes the whole target. That conversation belongs in the Social Security strategy post and your own planner's office, not a checklist.
Checking items off by intent instead of evidence. "I'm going to build the emergency fund" is not "6 months of expenses in a high-yield account." If you can't point at the account and the balance, the box stays empty.
Optimizing the wrong phase. Spending time on Phase 4 questions (Roth conversions, allocation) while your emergency fund is at 2 months is reordering the deck. The phases are ordered for a reason — liquidity before optimization.
Treating the Coast FIRE number as a destination rather than a threshold. It's a line. Once you're across it, the strategy changes from saving harder to spending less and staying invested. People who treat it as a destination keep chasing the next number and never enjoy the coast.
Skipping the stress test. A plan that works at 7% average return and 3% inflation and 0% healthcare inflation is a plan for a world that doesn't exist. Run your numbers at 5% return and 5% healthcare inflation before you tell anyone the date.
CoastFIREWhen — Educational content. Not financial advice. See our editorial policy.