Barista FIRE: Using Part-Time Work to Bridge the Gap to Full Retirement

Barista FIRE describes leaving a full-time career once you have a meaningful portfolio, but continuing to work part-time (the name comes from jobs like barista work that, in the US, sometimes come with health insurance benefits) to cover some or all of your living expenses instead of withdrawing from savings.

The appeal is twofold: it can let you leave a demanding full-time job years earlier than a full "never work again" FIRE number would require, and it reduces how much you need to withdraw from your portfolio in the early years — directly reducing sequence-of-returns risk during the most vulnerable period.

A simple way to model this in the calculator above is to lower your "Annual Expenses in FIRE" slider to reflect only the portion of expenses your portfolio needs to cover, treating part-time income as covering the rest.

Barista FIRE isn't right for everyone — it depends on being able and willing to keep working in some capacity, and on the availability of part-time work (and, in some countries, health coverage) that fits your situation.