What is Coast FIRE, in one sentence?

Coast FIRE is the savings level at which your existing invested portfolio, with no further contributions, will compound into a full retirement corpus by your target retirement age — so from that point on you only need to earn enough to cover current expenses, not to keep investing.

What real return should I assume for Nepal?

A defensible long-horizon real return for a Nepali diversified portfolio (CIT + mutual fund SIPs + selective NEPSE exposure + an FD ladder) is 4–6%. The arithmetic: NEPSE's 22-year CAGR has been 8.69% price-only per Investopaper's long-term study; matured Nepali mutual funds have averaged 15.76% per year per B360 Nepal; CIT pays 7.75% on the Employee Savings Growth Retirement Fund for FY 2080/81 (6.5% base plus 1.25% bonus); the weighted-average FD rate is around 4–5.3% per recent NRB data; and Nepal's long-run inflation is 5.2% (5-year) to 7.7% (since 1981) per the World Bank. Subtract ~5–6% inflation from a balanced nominal return of ~10–12% and the real return band is 4–6%. This post uses 5% as the central case.

What withdrawal rate should I use to calculate my FI number?

The original Trinity Study by Cooley, Hubbard and Walz (1998) and William Bengen's 1994 paper validated a 4% rate for a US 30-year retirement. For Nepal — where the long-run real return ceiling is lower, inflation is more volatile, and most retirees do not have a state pension to fall back on — a 3.0–3.5% withdrawal rate is more defensible. This post uses 3.5%, which means your FI number = annual expenses ÷ 0.035, or about 28.6× annual expenses.

Does Coast FIRE mean I can stop saving entirely?

No — Coast FIRE means you can stop saving for retirement. You still need to fund your current life: rent or EMI, food, transport, kids, festivals, the occasional emergency. The simplification is that the retirement bucket is now self-funding. Many Coast FIRE-stage Nepalis use the freed-up cash flow to take a lower-paying but more meaningful job, take a sabbatical, fund a sibling's education, or just stop feeling guilty about not maxing out CIT every month.

Can I rely on my children to fund my retirement instead?

Probably not, on the timeline you would prefer. Per the National Statistics Office 2021 Census, 2.97 million Nepalis are aged 60+ (10.2% of the population, up from 8.1% in 2011), and the elderly population is growing at 3.29%/year vs total population growth of 0.92%/year. The dependency ratio is moving against the next generation. Coast FIRE is the answer to a question that more Nepalis will be asking in the 2040s and 2050s than ever before: how do you fund a 20–30 year retirement when fewer than 10% of Nepali workers have any formal pension?

How is Coast FIRE different from Lean FIRE or Fat FIRE?

Lean FIRE is a full FI number sized to a modest lifestyle — typically the lowest sustainable expense band. Fat FIRE is the same concept sized to an aspirational lifestyle. Both require you to be at the *full* FI number to stop working. Coast FIRE is a *staged* concept: you hit the coast number well before the full FI number, and then let compounding do the rest while you optionally keep working at a lower intensity. The reference framework for the broader FIRE taxonomy is summarised in the Wikipedia FIRE movement entry.

Coast FIRE Nepal: The Savings Number to Stop Investing

A friend at a Pulchowk-area startup — 29, Rs 1.4 lakh take-home, no dependants — asked me a question I had been waiting for someone to ask.

He had been saving and investing aggressively since 2079: roughly Rs 50,000/month into CIT, an SIP, and an FD ladder, on top of his automatic PF. Three years in, his investment account had crossed Rs 22 lakh. He liked his job most weeks. He did not love it.

The question was specific: if he stopped adding anything more to his investments today and just let what he had compound until 60, would it be enough to retire on?

That question is Coast FIRE. The arithmetic answer for him turned out to be: not yet, but close — and probably within 2–3 more years of current saving. This post is how to do that calculation for yourself, with Nepali numbers and Nepali assumptions.

Where the concept comes from

The full FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) framework was popularised in the early 2010s — the Wikipedia FIRE movement entry is the cleanest neutral reference for the taxonomy. Coast FIRE is a sub-concept that emerged in the Mr. Money Mustache forum and the r/financialindependence community around 2017–18; no single individual is widely credited with coining the term.

The idea is mechanical. The full FI number is the size of an invested portfolio that throws off your annual expenses indefinitely at a safe withdrawal rate (SWR). Coast FIRE is the size of the current portfolio that, even with zero further contributions, will grow into the full FI number by the time you actually want to retire.

The lever is time. The earlier you hit it, the smaller the number — because compounding has more years to work. Most of the Rule of 72 intuition from the first-10-lakh post applies here directly: at 5%, money doubles every ~14.4 years; at 6%, every 12; at 7%, every ~10.3.

The two assumptions everything depends on

Before any math: pick a withdrawal rate and a real return. Get these two wrong by a percentage point each and the Coast FIRE number swings by 40%.

Withdrawal rate

The 4% rule comes from William Bengen's 1994 Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data, formalised by the Trinity Study (Cooley, Hubbard, Walz, 1998) which concluded that withdrawal rates of 3% and 4% are "extremely unlikely to exhaust any portfolio" over a 30-year US retirement.

Two reasons to be more conservative in Nepal:

Higher inflation drag. Per the World Bank's Nepal CPI series, the 5-year average through end-2025 was 5.2%; the long-run average since 1981 is 7.7%. US long-run inflation is closer to 3%. Higher inflation eats real returns faster.
Lower real return ceiling. A globally diversified portfolio can target ~5–7% real long-run. A Nepal-only portfolio sits in the 4–6% real band (see below). The 4% rule was calibrated on the higher-return regime.

This post uses 3.5% as the safe withdrawal rate. That makes the FI number annual expenses ÷ 0.035, or about 28.6× annual expenses.

Real return

Build it bottom-up from Nepali sources:

Vehicle	Recent return (nominal)	Source
CIT Employee Savings Growth Retirement Fund	7.75% (6.50% base + 1.25% bonus, FY 2080/81)	Rising Nepal
NEPSE index (22-year CAGR, ex-dividends)	8.69%	Investopaper long-run study
Matured Nepali mutual funds (5-yr+)	15.76% (cap gains + dividends)	B360 Nepal
3-year FD (2019–2023 avg)	9.54%	Investopaper / NRB
Weighted-avg FD (mid-2025)	5.33%	NRB monthly data via Saral Banking Sewa

A realistic balanced portfolio — 30% CIT, 30% mutual fund SIP, 25% direct NEPSE, 15% FD ladder — nets roughly 10–11% nominal in long-run expectation. Subtract a defensible 5–6% inflation and the real return band is 4–6%.

This post uses 5% as the central case, with sensitivity tables for 4% and 6%. None of these are guarantees — they are planning anchors.

The formula

The full FI number, in today's rupees:

FI number = annual expenses (today) ÷ SWR
         = annual expenses × 28.57   (at 3.5% SWR)

The Coast FIRE number, in today's rupees, for someone n years from retirement at a real return r:

Coast FIRE = FI number ÷ (1 + r)^n

Worked: 30-year-old wanting Rs 60,000/month retirement (= Rs 7.2 lakh/year), retiring at 60 (n = 30), real return r = 5%.

FI number = 7.2 ÷ 0.035 = Rs 205.7 lakh (Rs 2.06 crore) in today's rupees.
Coast FIRE = 205.7 ÷ (1.05)^30 = 205.7 ÷ 4.32 = Rs 47.6 lakh.

Hit Rs 47.6 lakh in invested assets and stop adding. At 5% real, that grows into Rs 2.06 crore (today's rupees) by age 60. Draw 3.5% per year and you have Rs 7.2 lakh annually for life.

The retirement-expense scenarios

The biggest sensitivity is not the return assumption — it is what monthly number you actually need in retirement. Three honest Kathmandu scenarios, all in today's rupees:

Scenario	Monthly	Annual	What this covers
Lean Kathmandu retirement	Rs 40,000	Rs 4.8 lakh	Owned home (no rent), modest groceries, basic utilities, NHIP + a small private health top-up, occasional travel within Nepal, no servants/help, no major lifestyle inflation.
Comfortable Kathmandu retirement	Rs 60,000	Rs 7.2 lakh	Owned home, fuller groceries with eating out 1–2×/week, utilities, NHIP plus a Rs 5–10 lakh private health floater, part-time house help, one domestic trip and one regional trip (Bhutan/India/Sri Lanka) per year. Roughly 2× the per-person NLSS-IV Kathmandu Valley figure of Rs 21,944/month.
Slightly aspirational Kathmandu retirement	Rs 90,000	Rs 10.8 lakh	Owned home, comfortable lifestyle, regular house help and driver, Rs 20–25 lakh private health floater, one international trip and one regional trip per year, modest occasional gifting to children/grandchildren.

For each, the full FI number at 3.5% SWR:

Scenario	Annual expenses	FI number
Lean	Rs 4.8 lakh	Rs 1.37 crore
Comfortable	Rs 7.2 lakh	Rs 2.06 crore
Aspirational	Rs 10.8 lakh	Rs 3.09 crore

These are large numbers. The point of Coast FIRE is they look much smaller when you discount them back to today.

The table you actually want

Coast FIRE numbers, in today's rupees, at a 5% real return, for each scenario × current age combination (assuming retirement at 60):

Current age	Years to 60	Lean (Rs 1.37 cr)	Comfortable (Rs 2.06 cr)	Aspirational (Rs 3.09 cr)
25	35	Rs 25 lakh	Rs 37 lakh	Rs 56 lakh
30	30	Rs 32 lakh	Rs 48 lakh	Rs 72 lakh
35	25	Rs 40 lakh	Rs 61 lakh	Rs 91 lakh
40	20	Rs 52 lakh	Rs 78 lakh	Rs 1.16 crore
45	15	Rs 66 lakh	Rs 99 lakh	Rs 1.49 crore
50	10	Rs 84 lakh	Rs 1.26 crore	Rs 1.90 crore

Two patterns. First, the lean number is roughly two-thirds of the comfortable number at every age — your lifestyle choice is the biggest lever you control. Second, the gap between ages compounds: a 25-year-old needs Rs 37 lakh for the comfortable scenario; a 40-year-old needs Rs 78 lakh. The 15-year wait costs the rough equivalent of Rs 41 lakh of catch-up saving — or, alternatively, the rough equivalent of buying the next 15 years of compounding at retail price.

Sensitivity at the comfortable Rs 2.06 crore target:

Current age	At 4% real	At 5% real	At 6% real
25	Rs 52 lakh	Rs 37 lakh	Rs 27 lakh
30	Rs 63 lakh	Rs 48 lakh	Rs 36 lakh
35	Rs 77 lakh	Rs 61 lakh	Rs 48 lakh
40	Rs 94 lakh	Rs 78 lakh	Rs 64 lakh

A one-percentage-point return assumption changes the Coast FIRE number by 25–40% at every age. This is why the post uses 5% as the central case rather than picking the most flattering number — the honest plan needs to survive a 4% real return regime if NEPSE underperforms or inflation runs hot for a decade.

Three honest scenarios

Scenario 1 — 25-year-old, lean target, Pokhara remote-work. Takes home Rs 95,000/month. Lives at home, saves Rs 50,000/month. Already has Rs 8 lakh invested. Coast FIRE target (lean, 25 → 60): Rs 25 lakh. At 5% real and Rs 50,000/month additional contributions, he hits it in roughly 2 years 4 months. After that he could downshift to half the hours at half the pay and the lean retirement still funds itself.

Scenario 2 — 32-year-old couple, comfortable target, Kathmandu professionals. Combined take-home Rs 2.1 lakh/month. Two-year-old child. Currently saving Rs 60,000/month combined into CIT, an SIP, and a sinking fund. Existing investments: Rs 35 lakh combined. Coast FIRE target (comfortable, 32 → 60, n=28): Rs 53 lakh. At Rs 60,000/month saving and 5% real, they cross Rs 53 lakh in about 4 years. They might still keep saving after that for a child's college and a house upgrade — but the retirement bucket becomes self-funding from age 36.

Scenario 3 — 41-year-old, comfortable target, single earner, late start. Take-home Rs 1.6 lakh/month. Has saved sporadically: Rs 18 lakh in CIT, FD, and one mutual fund. Coast FIRE target (comfortable, 41 → 60, n=19): Rs 82 lakh. The gap is large: Rs 64 lakh at age 41, with 19 years left. At Rs 50,000/month contributions and 5% real, he gets there in about 10–11 years — meaning Coast FIRE arrives at 51 or 52. The "stop investing" decision lands much later for late starters, which is itself the point: the cost of delayed saving is large and visible.

What changes after Coast FIRE

The point of computing this number is not to brag about hitting it. It is to give you a meaningful decision after you do.

Things people actually do at Coast FIRE. Take a lower-paying role at an NGO or government project. Move from agency back to in-house at fewer hours. Start a side practice that may take 2–3 years to break even. Go back to school. Take a sabbatical. Move out of Kathmandu. Fund a sibling's higher education. Stop arguing with their spouse about whether they are "saving enough."

Things Coast FIRE does not do. It does not cover current life — you still need a salary or other income for rent, food, EMI, kids, festivals. It does not make you immune to market drawdowns (if NEPSE crashes 40% the year after you hit Coast FIRE, your plan needs to either accept a longer compounding window or top up). It does not let you stop paying for health insurance — see the term life and health insurance posts. It does not, on its own, fund children's education or a major medical event without a separate sinking fund.

The traps

Five mistakes that consistently break the Coast FIRE plan:

Confusing nominal and real returns. If you assume 10% return with 6% inflation, you have 4% real, not 10%. The whole calculation needs to be in real terms (today's rupees). Otherwise the FI number looks larger than it is.
Using a US-style 4% withdrawal rate. Nepal's real return regime is lower and noisier than the US. 3.0–3.5% is the defensible band. Using 4% understates the FI number by about 14%.
Forgetting that 60 is younger than your funded period. Per the World Bank's Nepal life expectancy data, life expectancy at birth is ~71 years, and per the WHO country profile, conditional life expectancy at 60 adds roughly 13 healthy years. A 60-year-old today should plan for a 20-25 year retirement, not 10. If you retire at 60 with a 25-year horizon, the 3.5% rate becomes critical, not optional.
Treating CIT and PF as separate from the plan. Your CIT, PF, and SSF balances count toward the Coast FIRE number — they are invested assets that will compound. Many Nepali earners run a Coast FIRE calculation excluding their CIT, decide they are "behind," and over-save. See the CIT vs PF vs SSF post for the framing of how these three actually contribute.
Relying on the home as the retirement asset. A Kathmandu owned home produces zero rupees of cash flow unless you rent it out or sell it. The FI number above is for invested assets that throw off Rs 60,000/month — not a Rs 2 crore house. If your wealth is concentrated in the house, the Coast FIRE math will look better than your actual cash-flow situation. Plan separately.

Why Coast FIRE matters more in Nepal than most countries

A point worth keeping in front of mind. Per Kathmandu Post columns citing ILO data, only about 10% of Nepal's working-age population has access to formal social security; over 80% of workers (90%+ of women) work informally. The SSF coverage figures put about 2.86 million Nepalis as contributing employees, against a working-age population near 20 million.

Translation: most Nepalis retire on whatever they personally saved, whatever their children send, and the Rs 4,000/month samajik suraksha bhatta. There is no robust state pension system to fall back on for the majority of private-sector workers. Coast FIRE is not an exotic American import — it is a framework that solves a specifically Nepali problem: how do you build a retirement plan when the state has not built one for you?

For the giving-parents-money side of the same arithmetic, the joint family salary post covers the previous generation. Coast FIRE is the answer for your generation — so the next 30-year-old does not need to be running gap-funding math on your retirement.

What you actually need to know

Coast FIRE = (annual retirement expenses ÷ 0.035) ÷ (1.05)^(60 − current age) is the working formula for the comfortable Kathmandu scenario at 5% real.
For a 30-year-old aiming at a Rs 60,000/month retirement lifestyle, the number is roughly Rs 48 lakh. Hit that, and the investments alone grow into a Rs 2.06 crore corpus by 60.
Your assumptions matter more than your saving rate. Pick a defensible withdrawal rate (3–3.5% in Nepal) and a defensible real return (4–6%), and pressure-test the plan against the lower end.
Coast FIRE is not retirement — it is the point at which retirement is no longer the question. After it, you can choose what to work on for reasons other than retirement.

If you want me to run the math for your specific age, expense scenario, and current invested-assets balance, email parjanya57@gmail.com. The calculation is short; the decision it unlocks is not.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the "roadmap end-to-end" section. The companion posts are the beginner's roadmap to financial independence and the first Rs 10 lakh post.