How to Reach Coast FIRE (The Relaxed Way to Retire!)

What if you didn't have to choose between working full time until 65 or saving aggressively to retire at 40? What if there was a middle path that gave you freedom now while still securing your future? That's exactly what Coast Fire offered today's guest. By his late thirties, he'd saved enough that his investments could grow into a full retirement without adding another dollar. That freedom allowed him to leave his corporate job at 40, shift to part time work, and completely redesign his life around what mattered most, all while supporting a family of four. If you've ever felt stuck between grinding for fire and staying in the rat race forever, this episode will show you there's another way. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me as always is my owns his time cohost, Scott Trench. Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here. Excited to clock in today and talk about CoastFi and and Andy's journey. We're so excited to have Andy Hill back on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Andy was on the podcast five years ago. He's also written a book about this story called Own Your Time, 10 Financial Steps to Put Your Family First and Escape the Corporate Grind. I'll be talking about what inspired him to write the book and about his journey here. So welcome back to Bigger Pockets Money. Thank you so much, Scott, and thank you so much, Mindy. I appreciate it. It's good to see you. I last saw you at FinCon where you hosted. Very nice. What's been going on since we last talked to you five years ago? Oh my gosh. Five years ago. Wow. It it's it's time flies. I think that conversation was during the pandemic too. It was one of those moments of, like, hey. Did you make the right decision with, taking the corporate leap? And it was right around that time. And so at that time, I was juggling, okay. Did I make the right decision? This is a big moment. This is a big year. And, yeah, jumping into solopreneurship in a global pandemic was definitely difficult. And, there were some mistakes and some learnings during that process for sure. Yeah. Oh, you made mistakes? That never happens as soon as you jump into solopreneurship. I believe we recorded right at the very beginning of the pandemic too, and we, that was a big, like, all star episode, episode 119, where we had you and the Mad Fientist and, Doug Nordman and Amy and Tim from Go With Less. We had, all these different people on the show to talk about how the pandemic was affecting them specifically and, you know, because they were all in different different parts of their their life. So let's talk about that a little bit. Remind us, you left your job right before the pandemic started? Yeah. So right before our conversation, I, saved …