Types of FIRE: Coast, Barista, Lean, Fat, and the one you actually want
Coast FIRE, Barista FIRE, Lean FIRE, Fat FIRE, regular FIRE: what each one means, the number behind it, and how to tell which fits your life. A plain-language map with the math for each.
FIRE (financial independence, retire early) is not one destination. It is a spectrum, and the community has named the points along it: Lean, regular, Fat, Coast, and Barista FIRE. The names sound like a menu, but underneath they are all variations on a single number, the size of the pile that makes work optional, and they differ only in how big that pile is and how completely you stop. Here is the plain-language map, with the math behind each.
The one number they all share
Every flavour of FIRE is a variation on your FIRE number: your annual expenses divided by a safe withdrawal rate (25 times your expenses, at a 4% rate). Change the expenses, change the rate, or change when the pile has to be ready, and you move from one flavour to the next. If the formula itself is new to you, start with How to calculate your FIRE number, then come back here for the variants.
Lean FIRE: the same freedom, a smaller life
Lean FIRE is a full stop, funded on a deliberately frugal budget. The math is identical to regular FIRE; the difference is the expense number you feed it. Someone comfortable living on 240,000 NOK a year needs roughly 6m NOK at a 4% rate. The freedom is real and it arrives sooner, but it is tight: little slack for a bad year, a big medical bill, or a change of heart about how you want to live.
Regular FIRE: the standard 25×
The default. Your actual, comfortable annual expenses times your multiplier. No unusual frugality, no unusual luxury. For most people this is the number they mean when they say “my FIRE number,” and it is the honest baseline the other flavours flex around.
Fat FIRE: the bigger cushion
Fat FIRE funds a generous life with margin to spare, and sensible Fat FIRE often pairs the larger pile with a lower withdrawal rate for extra safety. A household wanting 800,000 NOK a year at a conservative 3.5% rate needs roughly 23m NOK. It takes longer to reach, but it absorbs shocks the lean version can’t, and it removes the “what if we got it slightly wrong” anxiety that trails a tight number.
Coast FIRE: stop saving, let it grow
Coast FIRE is the point where your existing investments, left completely untouched, will grow into your full FIRE number by your target retirement age. You are not retired. You still work to cover today’s expenses. But you can stop adding to the pile, because compounding does the rest. The number is your FIRE number discounted back to today:
where r = real return assumption, n = years until you draw on it.
It is the flavour that buys the most life back the earliest, because it frees up your whole savings rate to spend on the present. Our Coast FI calculator runs this with region-aware defaults, and we wrote the country-specific version in Coast FI in Norway.
Barista FIRE: part-time income closes the gap
Barista FIRE is the halfway house: a portfolio large enough that a modest part-time income covers the rest, so full-time work becomes optional. If your expenses are 400,000 NOK a year and part-time work brings in 150,000, your portfolio only has to fund the 250,000 gap. At a 4% rate that’s ~6.25m NOK instead of the 10m a full stop would need. The name comes from the classic example (a part-time job that also carries health cover), and the trade is straightforward: less pile, more ongoing engagement with work, on your terms.
The cross-border twist
Every flavour above assumes one currency and one country. The moment your life crosses borders, two more questions attach to whichever one you pick. First, in which currency is the number denominated, and does it match where you’ll spend? Second, how much of your pile is accessible now versus locked in pensions until an access age? A Coast FIRE number that leans on a locked pension is a different promise than one that doesn’t. The flavour tells you the shape; the currency and access age tell you whether it’s real.
How fjordFIRE handles this
fjordFIRE doesn’t make you pick a label. It computes the underlying figures, your FIRE number, your Coast FIRE number, your Accessible FI and Total FI, from your own expenses, withdrawal rate, and currency, and lets you see where you sit on the spectrum rather than committing you to one word. Adjust your expected part-time income and you see the Barista version. Lower the withdrawal rate and you see the Fat version. Same engine, your assumptions, no menu.
Go deeper: Lesson: The FI Spectrum · The 4% rule, explained · How long to FI?.
Companion tools: Coast FI calculator · FIRE Number calculator.