98. Coast FI or Lean FIRE: 5 Questions to Help You Choose the Path for You

You don't have the way until you reach financial independence to start enjoying your life.

You can do that much earlier and start living a life that you love and that's true to you.

Welcome to Freedom Before Fire.

Using fire and life design techniques, we help you create freedom on your way to fire

instead of waiting until you're retired to do the things that like you are.

I'm your host Greg, a fire movement and life designer, if you're reaching to get freedom

now, then let's do this.

Hello there and welcome back to the show, my friend.

Now since we're in March, summer has officially started here in the Philippines and runs

through April until May.

And that's funny because unlike in UK or in US, we don't actually welcome summer here

with open arms, having a summer season here in an already hot country is just insane.

It can get pretty damn hot.

So luckily it's still a little bit cooler here in March.

I'm just not looking forward to April and May, but fingers crossed it's not going to

be too hot.

Anyway let's get on with the show.

Alright, so on the previous episode, I talked about the differences between coastify and

lean fire.

Now naturally this is useful if you're in a position where you're struggling to choose

between the two.

So today we'll be continuing that theme just in case you're still stuck on which pathway

to go down.

Now what I'll do is I'll share five questions that you can ask yourself to dig a little bit

deeper to find out which one suits you best.

Alright, let's jump right into the first question.

Alright, so question number one is on a scale of one to ten.

How fed up are you with work right now?

So this question helps you gauge where are you on that work satisfaction scale or dissatisfaction

scale as it may be.

If you're extremely fed up with work and you seriously want to quit, because your current

work may be so bad that it's affecting your health or your wellbeing, coastify helps

you quit a job you hate sooner rather than waiting a bit longer to get to lean fire.

Now that's because you need a smaller nest egg to get to coastify so you can get there

faster.

So you can start enjoying the benefits of coastify a little bit quicker than waiting to

lean fire.

Now let's go to the second question.

Now this question is more about the RE part of fire, the retired early part, and how important

it is for you to get there sooner.

Alright, so question number two is, do you want to achieve fire quickly or are you comfortable

with waiting a little bit longer to get there?

Most likely near your traditional retirement age.

So with this question, if you're in the camp of wanting to get to fire quicker, lean

fire would be the root for you.

That's because you usually need a smaller nest egg to get to lean fire compared to traditional

or fat fire.

Now with coastify on the other hand, because you stop investing, you need more time for

your portfolio to compound and reach your fire number.

And that is usually much further away than the lean fire milestone.

Essentially, what this question is asking is, how quickly do you want to retire early?

Because with coastify, you don't actually retire because you still need to do some sort

of active work and gain some sort of active income.

Alright, let's jump over to question number three.

Okay, so question number three is, can you maintain a low level of spending for the

long term?

If you're really frugal and see yourself as a bit of a minimalist and you can sustain

a low level of spending, then lean fire is very much suited to your lifestyle.

To get to lean fire, you do need a fairly bare bones budget.

Now, it may not be rice and beans and instant noodles all the time, but it might be close

to it, so just something to remember.

So if you're comfortable with living a simple life, then that's a good route for you to pursue.

Alright, let's go to question number four.

So question number four is, does your current career or profession typically allow part-time

or consultant hours?

Now some professions and careers are more open to having part-time positions and reduced

hours.

So for example, this might be in the digital market space, maybe some administrative roles,

customer service, sales positions, perhaps bookkeeping, so if you happen to have a career

that is open to reduced hours, costify might be a good fit.

You can downshift to a part-time position if you don't mind that career field because

it will be easier for you to achieve.

For example, requesting it from your employer or finding a role in the market that already

has part-time hours or even a seasonal type role.

Okay, so now on the flip side of that, you might have a career where it's not easy to

do part-time.

Now think of director type roles, executive roles, it could be being a surgeon, an engineer

maybe, or something like a hotel or restaurant manager, just to give some examples.

So if you're in this kind of role and work is not taking too much of a toll on you, you

might consider just aiming for lean fire.

It's possible you'll have a higher salary and might be able to get there quicker if

you're expense is low.

Now of course, there's no strict rule that says, oh, depending on the type of job you have,

you should go with coast or lean fire.

The point here is, sometimes certain careers may just lend itself to reduced hours and

it's more acceptable in that career or sector or industry and that just may help you choose

which route to go down.

Okay, so let's go to question number five.

So question number five is, do you know what you'd actually do when you are retired?

If you're like most people who have no idea what to do when retired, coast of I gives

you the time and space to experiment in a fairly controlled environment.

So let's say you hit coast of I, this means you can work part-time or seasonally if you

choose.

So with your other non-working days, you can fill this time, trying things, experimenting

on things and figuring out what you would actually do when you do retire.

You could do all that while having a bit of a safety cushion from some of that part-time

income you'd be generating.

If you already have a concrete idea or a clear picture of what you would do in retirement,

then maybe put in your head down and aiming for lean fire could be the potential route

for you.

But either way, if you are trying to figure out what you would do or just generally what

your life purpose is, you can listen back to episode 36 titled How to Find Your Purpose.

There's also a handy worksheet in there as well.

Okay, so I've got one bonus question you could ask yourself, if you're trying to figure

out between coast of I and lean fire, and it's more around considering your backup plans,

your contingencies and things like that.

Okay, so the bonus question is, what is the challenge of re-entry in your career field?

Now let's say you went down the lean fire route and you quit your career altogether.

If some years down the line you changed your mind and decided to go back to your previous

career, how easy would it be for you to re-enter where you left off?

Now if you were and say like the tech industry for example, and your skills need to be constantly

updated and you always need to know the newer softwares, that might be quite difficult

to do.

However, if you're in some slow-moving, traditional career, it might be easier to pick up

where you left off.

The thing with coast of I is that it helps you keep one foot into professional world,

so to speak, and obviously that does depend on the type of work you do in coast of I.

So in a way, it could potentially keep your skills warm in air quotes and your professional

networks fairly active.

Anyway, it's just something to consider when you're trying to choose between the two.

Alright, so let's do a quick recap on those questions.

The first one is on a scale of 1 to 10 how fed up are you with work right now?

The second one is do you want to achieve fire quickly or are you comfortable with waiting

a bit longer to get there?

The third one is can you maintain a low level of spending for the long term?

The fourth one is does your current career or profession typically allow part time or

consultant hours?

Question number five is do you know what you'd actually do when you're retired?

And the bonus question was what is the challenge of reentry in your career field?

Anyway, I hope that's helped you figure out which path to choose.

And if you want to hear more about coast fire, you can listen to these previous episodes,

for example, episode 54, reaching coastify on an average salary, and episodes 55 to 56,

where I talk about the risks of coastify and how to overcome them.

Alright, before I go, there's one special announcement I wanted to make.

And I just have to apologise if you hear some drums in the background or something like that.

Someone nearby is having band practice.

So apologies if you hear drums and guitars in the background.

Okay, so the one special announcement I wanted to make is if you're based in Australia

and want to physically connect with like-minded FIP people, my friend Brenda, who was actually

on the show previously, is hosting another fire spark retreat this year in 2026.

Essentially, it's a free day weekend of connection, learning and inspiration of all things fire,

and the focus will mainly be about mindset and lifestyle design.

So this will be held between the 7th and the 9th of August, and it's located in the

gold coast of Australia.

Of course, if you're not actually in Australia, you could always fly there if that's something

you're interested in doing.

And what I'll do is I'll pop the link in the show notes and all the details about the

event, about the retreat, how to sign up, how to register, etc. would all be there.

Okay, that's me for today.

Don't forget to follow the show on your podcast player app if you want to hear more about alternative

fire strategies.

And if you want, you can always send me a DM on Instagram if you have any questions.

The link to the account is in the show notes, have an awesome week, and as always, practice

gratitude, live life by your design, and do things that make you smile.

You got this.