Barista FIRE Calculator
Spending, the part-time paycheck, and the coverage
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Long-range scenario, not a guarantee. Small changes in returns, inflation, fees, taxes, and withdrawal timing can materially change the result.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter your annual spending NOT counting health insurance. The premium is deliberately kept out of it, because the premium is the term that differs between the two versions of this arrangement.
- 02
Enter the part-time income you expect, after tax. This is the paycheck that shrinks the portfolio target — enter what actually lands in the account, not the gross.
- 03
Fill in both premium fields: your yearly share if the part-time job offers a plan, and the yearly marketplace premium after any credit if it does not. There is no dropdown for "does the job have benefits" — the page prices both and tells you what the difference is worth.
- 04
Set the withdrawal rate the portfolio has to support, which opens at 4%, and enter what you have invested today.
- 05
Enter what you invest each year while still in the career job and the return you expect, then read the range at the top: the lower figure if the part-time job carries coverage, the higher one if you buy your own.
Formula
Two spending totals, because the health premium is the term that differs. With the job's plan: spending + your share of the employer premium. Buying your own: spending + the marketplace premium after any credit. Subtract the part-time income from each to get what the portfolio must cover, then divide by the withdrawal rate. At the opening figures that is ($46,000 + $2,400 − $26,000) ÷ 4% = $560,000, and ($46,000 + $9,600 − $26,000) ÷ 4% = $740,000. The $180,000 between them is the $7,200 premium difference capitalised at the same 4%. Full FIRE is the same arithmetic with no part-time income and buying your own coverage: $55,600 ÷ 4% = $1,390,000. The year counts are walked rather than solved — the balance grows by the return and takes in another year's saving until it reaches each target, and reports nothing rather than a negative logarithm if it never does.
Example
$46,000 of spending outside health insurance, $26,000 of part-time income after tax, $2,400 a year if the job's plan covers you and $9,600 on the marketplace if it does not, a 4% withdrawal rate, $300,000 invested and $30,000 a year still going in at a 6% return. With the job's plan the portfolio has to cover $22,400 a year, so the target is $560,000; buying your own it covers $29,600 and the target is $740,000. The plan is worth $180,000 of portfolio — six years of saving at $30,000 a year. From $300,000 the covered target arrives in 5 years, the uncovered one in 8, and full FIRE at $1,390,000 in 15. So the part-time paycheck buys 7 years of not going to the career job, and a job that also carries coverage buys 3 more on top of that — which is what the page is saying from the other end when it reports that a covered Barista FIRE arrives 10 years before full FIRE. The paycheck is carrying 47% of the $55,600 the year actually costs, which is also the share that disappears if the job does.
Definitions
- Barista FIRE
- Leaving the career job while a part-time one covers part of the spending — and, in the version worth having, the health coverage. The portfolio funds only the remainder.
- Subsidy cliff
- The 400%-of-poverty line above which the marketplace premium tax credit is zero rather than reduced. Back in force for 2026: $62,600 for one person, $84,600 for two.
- Out-of-pocket maximum
- The most a plan can make you pay in a year for covered in-network care, on top of the premium. It is the number an emergency fund should be sized against, not the premium.
Good to know
Health coverage is the American lever
Barista FIRE arithmetic is simple everywhere except the United States: spending minus the paycheck, divided by the withdrawal rate. What makes the US version different is that one of those spending lines can change by $7,000 or more depending on whether the part-time job carries a health plan, and a recurring annual cost is worth a multiple of itself in capital. At the figures this page opens with, a job whose plan leaves you paying $2,400 a year instead of $9,600 on the marketplace saves $7,200 — and at a 4% withdrawal rate that saving is worth $180,000 of portfolio you never have to accumulate. That is six years of saving at $30,000 a year, earned by one line on a benefits summary. It is also why this page reports a range rather than a number: $560,000 if the job carries coverage, $740,000 if it does not. There is no dropdown for it, and there should not be, because the distance between the two figures is the thing you came to find out. When you weigh two part-time offers, weigh them this way rather than by the hourly rate. An extra $3 an hour over twenty hours a week is $3,120 a year, worth $78,000 of capital — well under half of what a health plan is worth. The legal landscape is worth knowing before you count on any of it. An employer with 50 or more full-time-equivalent staff must offer coverage to anyone averaging 30 hours a week, so 30 hours is where the obligation starts; below that, coverage is entirely the employer's choice, and only a minority of large retail, warehouse and hospitality chains extend it to around 20 hours. Ask the specific questions before you resign anything: what is the hours threshold, is it measured monthly or over a look-back period, how long is the waiting period, and what is the employee share of the premium for the coverage tier you actually need. Family coverage and single coverage are different numbers by a factor of two or three.
Where a Barista household sits against the 2026 subsidy cliff
If the part-time job does not carry a plan, the marketplace does, and for 2026 the marketplace rules changed back. The enhanced premium tax credits introduced by ARPA §9661 and extended by the Inflation Reduction Act removed the 400%-of-poverty cliff and capped anyone's benchmark premium at 8.5% of income; they lapsed on 31 December 2025 with no extension enacted. So the original §36B table is in force again: your own expected contribution to a benchmark silver plan runs from 2.10% of income at the bottom of the range to 9.96% from 300% of poverty up to the cliff, and above 400% of poverty the credit is not tapered, it is zero. On the guidelines a 2026 coverage year uses, that line is $62,600 for one person and $84,600 for two. The good news for this arrangement is that a Barista FIRE household usually sits comfortably under the line, and that is a quiet part of why it works. Income here is modified AGI — part-time wages plus everything you cause to be realised in the portfolio — and a household living on $26,000 of wages plus dividends and a modest sale is nowhere near $84,600. The risk is not the ordinary year, it is the year with an event in it: a Roth conversion, a large capital gain, an inherited distribution, a bonus, the sale of a rental. Any of those can add five figures of MAGI, and the dollar that crosses the line costs the whole year's credit. Two more mechanics matter. The credit is normally taken in advance against an income you estimate in the autumn for a year that has not happened, then reconciled on the return, so an under-estimate becomes a bill in April — and while there are caps on how much of an over-advanced credit must be repaid below 400% of poverty, above 400% there are none and every dollar comes back. And the premium field on this page asks for the figure AFTER the credit you expect, so if your income plan changes, the number to update is that one.
A part-time paycheck is not portfolio income
The whole arrangement rests on a paycheck, and a paycheck is not the same kind of thing as a portfolio. At the opening figures, $26,000 of part-time income is covering 47% of what the year actually costs, and unlike the portfolio it can stop — usually in a recession, which is also when the portfolio is down. Lose it and the target reverts from $740,000 to the full FIRE number of $1,390,000, which is $650,000 you do not have. That is the specific risk this route takes on in exchange for leaving the career job years earlier, and it is why most people who run it keep saving something after they start, so the day the job ends is not also the day the plan ends. There is a compensating argument on the other side, and it is real. A smaller portfolio drawn on more lightly is genuinely more robust in the early years, when sequence risk does the most damage: a household withdrawing $29,600 from $740,000 is at 4%, but the same household in a year the job pays a little more is drawing less, and flexible withdrawals in bad years are one of the few things shown to matter. Part-time work also does two things a fully retired year cannot. Social Security benefits are calculated from an average of your highest 35 indexed years, and a year with no earnings enters that average as a zero — so for anybody short of 35 solid years, a part-time year is quietly buying benefit rather than just spending money. And earned income is the only thing that makes an IRA contribution possible at all: with wages, a 2026 contribution of up to $7,500, or $8,600 from age 50, stays available, which keeps one tax-advantaged door open that full retirement closes. Under the long-term part-time rules a W-2 job where you work at least 500 hours in two consecutive years must also let you defer into its 401(k), which is worth asking about before assuming a small job has no plan.
A premium is not the price of healthcare
The two premium fields on this page are the certain part of the cost and the smaller part of it. A marketplace plan cheap enough to look affordable generally carries a deductible in the thousands and an out-of-pocket maximum well above that, and in the year something goes wrong both are paid in full on top of every premium. The number an emergency fund should be sized against is the out-of-pocket maximum, not the premium — and for a household, the family maximum rather than the individual one. Metal levels are the mechanism, and they are counter-intuitive under 250% of poverty. Bronze plans have the lowest premiums and the highest cost sharing; silver sits in the middle. But cost-sharing reductions attach to silver plans and to no other metal level, and they are substantial: a silver plan with a normal actuarial value of about 70% is lifted to roughly 94% between 100% and 150% of poverty, about 87% from 150% to 200%, and about 73% from 200% to 250%. In that band, the usual advice to buy the cheapest bronze plan is simply wrong — the bronze premium is lower and the silver plan is cheaper. Above 250% the reductions disappear and the advice reverses again. Two more things the premium figure hides. Networks: a plan is only cheap if the hospital and specialists you would actually use are in it, and marketplace networks in some rating areas are narrow, with no out-of-network coverage beyond emergencies. And scope: dental and vision are usually separate purchases for adults, and prescription tiers vary enough between plans that one specific drug can be the deciding factor. Finally, keep the horizon in view. Every marketplace question ends at 65, when Medicare starts and the premium line is replaced by Part B, Part D and a supplement — usually a smaller number, and one whose surcharge is set by the income you realised two years earlier. That is why Barista FIRE is most often a bridge to 65 rather than a permanent arrangement.
Frequently asked questions
What is Barista FIRE?
Leaving the career job before the portfolio can fund everything, and covering the shortfall with part-time work. The name comes from the observation that some large employers extend health coverage below the 30-hour full-time line, which turns a modest hourly job into the thing that makes an early exit workable. The portfolio still has to carry the part of the spending the paycheck does not, which is why this needs a real number rather than a vibe.
Why does the page give me a range instead of one number?
Because the biggest single input is a yes or a no, and hiding it behind a dropdown would hide the thing you came to find out. A part-time job that carries a health plan and one that does not are two different retirements. At the figures this page opens with, the targets are $560,000 and $740,000 — the same spending, the same paycheck, $180,000 of portfolio apart. Once you know which job you actually have, read the end that applies.
How much is employer health coverage really worth?
Whatever it saves you in premium each year, divided by your withdrawal rate. A job whose plan leaves you paying $2,400 a year instead of $9,600 on the marketplace saves $7,200 — and at 4% an annual saving of $7,200 is $180,000 of capital you never have to accumulate. That is six years of saving at $30,000 a year. It is also the right way to compare two job offers: an extra $3 an hour over twenty hours a week for a full year is $3,120, worth $78,000 of capital at the same 4%, so a coverage-carrying job at a lower wage usually wins by a wide margin.
How many hours do I have to work to get a plan?
There is no universal answer, but there is a legal line worth knowing. An employer with 50 or more full-time-equivalent staff has to offer coverage to anyone averaging 30 hours a week or more, so 30 hours is where the obligation begins. Below that, coverage is entirely the employer's choice — some large retail, warehouse and coffee chains extend it to 20 hours or so, and most employers do not. Ask about the eligibility threshold and the waiting period before you count on it, and read your share of the premium off the actual plan documents rather than an average.
What happens to the marketplace subsidy in 2026?
The enhanced premium tax credits that ran from 2021 through 2025 lapsed on 31 December 2025, so the 400%-of-poverty cliff is back. Under it the credit still caps your own share of a benchmark silver plan at between 2.10% and 9.96% of income; above it there is no credit at all — not a smaller one, none. For a 2026 coverage year the line is $62,600 for one person and $84,600 for two. A Barista FIRE household usually sits comfortably below it, which is a quiet part of why the arrangement works. A Roth conversion or a large realised gain in the same year is what puts it over.
Is Barista FIRE safer than full FIRE?
Different risk, not less of it. A smaller portfolio is drawn on more lightly, which is genuinely protective in the early years when sequence risk bites hardest — but the paycheck doing that protecting can stop, and it tends to stop in exactly the recessions that hurt the portfolio. If the job goes at the opening figures, the target reverts from $740,000 to the full FIRE number of $1,390,000, which is $650,000 you do not have. Most people who run this arrangement keep saving something after they start, precisely so that the day the job ends is not also the day the plan ends.