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Coast number assumed seven percent real and three years in I have got two Coast FI

I stopped adding to retirement accounts at 34 on the basis that what I had would compound to enough by 60. Three years in, the real return has been closer to 2% and the projection now lands about 15% short of where it needs to be. I'm not panicking but I don't know whether the right move is to resume contributions, extend the timeline, or accept that a three-year window says nothing. How do people handle this without redoing the model every quarter?

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  • @tessa_ondrak · 6mo ago · 2 replies

    Three years tells you almost nothing about a 26 year projection, and if you rebuild the model every quarter you'll coast, uncoast and recoast yourself into a mess. What I'd do instead is set a review date once a year and a single decision rule: if actual balance is more than X% below the glidepath at review time, resume contributions at some fixed amount until it's back on. Written down in advance, checked once, ignored the rest of the year.

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    • @mature_student_j · 6mo ago

      A glidepath with a tolerance band is much saner than the single end number I've been using. Thanks.

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  • @propolis_pia · 6mo ago

    Resuming partial contributions is not a defeat. I coast with about 300 a month still going in, which is small enough that it doesn't change my lifestyle and large enough that it quietly fixes a lot of bad-decade scenarios. Middle options exist.

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  • @niacinamide_jo · 6mo ago · 2 replies

    The one thing I'd genuinely worry about at 37 is not the return assumption, it's whether stopping contributions has quietly raised your baseline spending. Coasting works because your number is fixed, and it stops working if your annual spend drifts up by 4% a year while you're not looking.

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    • @mature_student_j · 6mo ago

      Uncomfortably good point. My spending is up about 18% since I stopped contributing and I'd been calling it inflation.

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  • @coopvent_cal · 6mo ago · 3 replies

    7% real is an optimistic input to build a life plan on. I ran mine at 4.5% real and treated anything above that as a bonus, which meant I coasted about two years later than I could have but I've never had this particular conversation with myself. If you rerun your model at 4.5 and the answer is still 'mostly fine, retire at 62 instead of 60', that's probably your real answer.

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    • @mature_student_j · 6mo ago

      Rerunning at 4.5 gives me 63 with the current balance. That's genuinely reassuring.

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    • @wren_oyelaran · 6mo ago

      Agreed on the input, though I'd add inflation assumptions matter just as much and get less attention. Two percent versus three over 26 years is an enormous swing in the final number.

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