Downshift with Barista FIRE

Barista FIRE is an early retirement strategy where you save enough to cover a significant portion of your future living expenses through your investment portfolio's Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR), and work a low-stress, enjoyable part-time job or freelance gig to cover the rest. This allows you to exit your high-stress career much earlier. The name comes from working as a Starbucks barista to get health insurance.

In Coast FIRE, you still work full-time or cover 100% of your expenses with work, but you do not need to save for retirement anymore because your portfolio compounds silently. In Barista FIRE, you actually withdraw money from your portfolio to cover a portion of your expenses, and work part-time to cover the remaining gap.

If you stop working part-time, you will have to withdraw more from your portfolio than your SWR allows, which increases the risk of depleting your capital. Alternatively, your portfolio could have grown in the background over the part-time years, eventually reaching Full FIRE size and allowing complete retirement.

This varies significantly by country. In the U.S., many Barista FIRE followers choose part-time jobs at employers (like Starbucks, Costco, or REI) that offer health benefits to part-time workers. In countries with universal healthcare, this is less of a concern, and the focus is purely on supplementing cash flow.