What will the agent ask you?
A good agent asks before it answers. Expect questions like these, and answer the ones that matter to you.
- When do you want to stop needing a paycheck?
- What would a year in retirement cost, in today's dollars?
- Which accounts count toward retirement: a 401(k), an IRA, a brokerage account, an HSA?
- Will Social Security, a pension, or rental income cover part of that spending, and from what age?
- What growth rate after inflation are you willing to assume, and how would a lower one change your plans?
- Will your housing cost change by then, such as a mortgage paid off?
What does a good answer look like?
A worked example on sample data: one person, 38, with $260,000 across a 401(k) and an IRA, adding $1,800 a month, who wants to retire at 62 on $55,000 a year in today's dollars.
You
Could I stop putting money into retirement soon and still be fine?
Your agent
Your 401(k) and IRA hold $260,000. Spending $55,000 a year at a 4% withdrawal rate means a target of $1,375,000 at 62. At 5% a year after inflation, $260,000 grows to about $838,500 by then with nothing added, so you're not coasting yet. Your coast number today is about $426,300.
Your agent
If you keep adding $1,800 a month, you reach it by age 48. From then, the balance could grow to the target by 62 with nothing more added, if growth holds at 5%.
Your agent
Growth is the assumption that moves this most. At 4% instead of 5%, your coast number today is about $536,400, and you reach it by age 56 instead of 48. I built the page in Candor with growth, retirement age, and spending as assumptions you can change. Social Security isn't counted. If you share the estimate from your Social Security statement, I can show how much of the spending it might cover and from what age.
Illustrative example with sample data, not a customer result.
What does a weak answer look like?
Coast FIRE means you've saved enough that compound growth will carry you to retirement. A common rule is to have 25 times your expenses invested. Plug your numbers into a calculator with a 7% return to find out if you're there.
- It never used your balances, age, or spending, so there's no answer.
- A 7% return before inflation, set against spending in today's dollars, makes the target look closer than it is.
- It doesn't say which assumption the answer depends on, or what a lower growth rate would change.
- Nothing is saved, so next year you start over.
Coasting depends on growth you cannot know
The idea is simple: if what you have invested could grow into enough by retirement, new saving becomes optional. Candor supplies your investment and retirement balances. The growth rate, the age you retire, and what you will spend are assumptions, and the answer moves with each of them.
Check the answer
- Try a lower growth rate than you expect. If the answer only works at the optimistic rate, it is not settled.
- Check that spending in retirement reflects your life then, including housing costs that may change.
Choose a next step
Use the gap or surplus to decide how much to keep saving. Your agent can look at the full retirement picture with you next.
Where Candor fits
Your agent works through the question with you, builds the plan, and keeps you on it. Candor gives it your real accounts, exact figures, and the goals, budget, notes, and decisions from earlier sessions, in whichever agent you use. Its review raises what's worth talking through and tells your agent why. Candor is not a licensed advisor and gives no advice; your agent does the advising, and the decisions are yours.
- Candor connects to banks read-only and cannot move money.
- Candor never sells your financial data or trains models on it, and you can export or delete it.
- Every agent read and change is recorded with its reason.
Common questions
- What is coast FIRE?
- FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early. Coast FIRE is the point where what you have invested could grow, with no more contributions, into enough to retire at the age you choose. Your work still pays for today's spending, but saving more for retirement becomes optional.
- How is the coast FIRE number calculated?
- Start with the target: yearly spending in retirement divided by your withdrawal rate, so $60,000 at 4% is $1,500,000. Then divide the target by (1 + growth rate) raised to the years until retirement. At 5% for 30 years that factor is about 4.32, so the coast number is about $347,000. With a growth rate after inflation, the answer is in today's dollars.
- What growth rate should I use for coast FIRE?
- Use a rate after inflation, since the spending you type is in today's dollars. In the historical data William Bengen used for his 1994 study, a mix of 60% stocks and 40% intermediate-term Treasuries returned about 8.2% a year compounded, close to 5.1% after inflation. The Federal Reserve aims for 2% inflation over the longer run. Past returns are no promise, so try a lower rate and see whether the answer still holds.
- What is the 4% rule, and what are its limits?
- It comes from Bengen's 1994 study of US returns since 1926. With half stocks and half bonds, withdrawing 4% of the starting balance in the first year and raising the amount with inflation after that lasted at least about 35 years from every starting year he tested. He framed it for people retiring around 60 to 65. A 1998 study in the AAII Journal tested payout periods of 15 to 30 years, and an early retirement can run longer. Morningstar's 2021 research, using forward-looking return estimates, put the safe starting rate for a 50/50 portfolio at about 3.3%. A lower rate raises the target: $60,000 a year at 3.5% needs about $1,714,000.
- What's the difference between coast FIRE and FIRE?
- FIRE means having the whole target invested now, enough to stop working. Coast FIRE means having the coast number invested now, enough for growth to reach the target by your retirement age while your work pays for today. In the calculator's default example, FIRE at 35 takes $1,500,000 invested; coast FIRE takes about $347,000.
- Does the calculator count Social Security?
- No. It counts only the balance and monthly amount you type. Social Security, a pension, or rental income would pay part of your spending and lower the target. You can claim Social Security as early as 62, and the monthly benefit grows the longer you wait, up to 70. Social Security's own calculators estimate your benefit for each claiming age from 62 to 70.
- Does Candor work this out from my accounts?
- Your agent does, from your records in Candor. It reads your investment and retirement balances, asks what the records can't show, like when you want to retire, and builds this page in Candor with the assumptions labeled. Candor gives no advice; your agent works through it with you. Candor connects to banks read-only and cannot move money.
Sources
- Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data, William P. Bengen Journal of Financial Planning (Financial Planning Association)
- Retirement Savings: Choosing a Withdrawal Rate That Is Sustainable AAII Journal
- The State of Retirement Income: Safe Withdrawal Rates Morningstar, November 11, 2021
- Why does the Federal Reserve aim for inflation of 2 percent over the longer run? Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, August 22, 2025
- Planning your Social Security claiming age Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, January 29, 2026
- Use Social Security retirement calculators to estimate your benefits USAGov, January 16, 2026