Barista FIRE calculator

How much portfolio is enough when part-time income covers a share?

Barista FIRE does not ask the portfolio to pay for everything. Enter the reliable net income you expect to keep earning; the portfolio target covers only the remaining spending gap.As of 6 September 2026 · Reader-selected planning assumptions

Your scenario

All money values are inflation-adjusted.

Planning to stop working altogether? The FIRE calculator counts no income beside the portfolio

Monthly spending € Reliable monthly income alongside the portfolio € Net, and only what you would still expect to earn in a bad year. This is the number the whole plan leans on. Withdrawal rate % Portfolio today € Monthly investment € Years until your target date years Annual return before inflation % Inflation % Years the retirement income should last years

Tax on the money you take out

Estimated tax on realised gains Tax-free allowance each year € The Sparerpauschbetrag: 1,000 per person, 2,000 for a jointly assessed couple. Share of the portfolio that will be gain % Only the gain portion of each sale is taxed. A long savings plan ends up mostly gain.

Required fields are marked. Review the optional settings, then calculate.

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What this answers

How much capital covers the part your work does not?

Only the gap between spending and reliable earned income has to come from the portfolio. Halve the gap and you roughly halve the target – which is the whole appeal, and the whole exposure.

The risk this adds

The plan now has a second thing that can stop

Part-time work can end earlier than planned, through health, care or a market nobody is hiring in. Run the target again with that income at zero: the difference is what you are relying on the work to cover.

Easy to confuse

Barista FIRE is not Coast FIRE

Barista keeps earning to cover part of today's spending. Coast stops saving and lets an existing portfolio grow into a later target. One buys income now, the other buys time.