Financially stressed parents: Meet the 'Coast FIRE' movement
- - Financially stressed parents: Meet the 'Coast FIRE' movement
Kerry HannonFebruary 1, 2026 at 11:30 PM
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When William Bengen tells me to check out a new book, I do.
Bengen created the "4% rule" for retirement withdrawals decades ago, explaining how much retirees can safely spend each year without running out of money, and is a personal finance legend.
His personal finance book suggestion: “Own Your Time: 10 Financial Steps to Put Your Family First and Escape the Corporate Grind,” by author Andy Hill, a family finance coach and host of the “Marriage, Kids and Money” podcast.
About a decade ago, Hill, 44, the father of two children, was a burned-out corporate events marketer. For fun, he launched his podcast as a side gig, chatting with his guests about family finances.
He also became a fan of the FIRE movement, which is short for “financial independence, retire early.” It involves socking away a significant percentage of your income, investing with a vengeance, and when you’re ready, scooping up income-producing investments, such as rental real estate.
The idea is to get the money piled up and debts wiped out so you can live the rest of your life how you want.
Hill and his wife, Nicole, followed that roadmap. Now, he pays himself about $100,000 annually, but works about half the weekly hours he did in his corporate job. His wife also works as an esthetician part-time at a dermatologist’s office.
Here are edited excerpts of our recent conversation:
Kerry Hannon: How do you define “owning your own time”?
Andy Hill: It’s the opportunity to look at your week and say, here's what I would like to do. Carve it out so how you spend your time is personal and feels right for you. You’re spending your time doing things that are good for your health and your family, and for the things that you care a lot about in your life.
Why this book now? Who's your target market?
The target market is parents who feel like they are drowning with time deprivation, as well as feeling a little tight with money. I try to help parents feel a little bit more breathing room step-by-step, and to get to a place where they're not questioning if this is as good as life gets.
How can parents of young children embrace the debt-free life that you advocate, especially now with many day-to-day costs inching up?
It's difficult to do, especially if you're feeling pinched with the rise of the cost of goods and services and general inflation. There are two levers that we can pull to improve our situation and get that debt-free life — increase our income and decrease our expenses.
For the folks out there who cannot imagine decreasing expenses any more than they have, look at increasing your income. The best place to increase your income is the place where people are already paying you. That could be your current employer or current clients. Find ways to continue to add value and grow within those areas.
Read more: Best ways to pay off credit card debt
You write about the typical ways to pay down debt, including the snowball method and avalanche method, but then you toss in the debt-hatred method. Let’s hear about that one.
The debt-hatred method is lining up all of the debts that you have and asking which one of these do I hate the most? Psychologically, it's good to pay off the ones that are bothering you, the ones that are weighing on your heart, that are weighing on your brain. Line those ones up first and crush them.
You went all in with the FIRE method, but the approach you and your wife chose is less drastic, or "Coast FIRE." Can you elaborate?
The FIRE movement was born out of "how can I save and invest as aggressively as possible, so I can retire in 15 years as opposed to 40 years?"
That can work if you're a multi-six-figure earner, or maybe you're on a single income, and you don't have to worry about kids, or you have no kids. But it might not be for families like us who don't earn that much, have some kids to take care of, and maybe have a spouse who says, "Hey man, I don't want extreme frugality in my life."
Coast FIRE is a good middle ground. It’s where you save and invest close to 25% or 30% of your income until you get to the point where your portfolio and savings are up so high that time and compound interest can take it the rest of the way to retirement at 60 without any further contributions. It's a beautiful math problem thanks to compound interest. It's not as extreme as traditional FIRE.
What is the most common mistake parents make with their finances?
When finances feel massively overwhelming, they put their heads in the sand. It's best if we approach personal finance in a simple way. Start with developing a budget, which might sound boring or overwhelming, but it’s the most freeing piece that defines how you want to use your money in accordance with your values and your family.
Most people know how much they make. Most people do not know how much they spend and where it's going. That’s the most enlightening piece of information for a lot of people.
Have a question about retirement? Personal finances? Anything career-related? Click here to drop Kerry Hannon a note.
Author Andy Hill lays out advice for young parents struggling with their finances (Photo courtesy of Andy Hill)
You are a big fan of solo entrepreneurship. You did it. What are the best tips for success for those who want to go this path?
It's important to first vet your idea and make sure somebody will actually buy something from you. It’s not having a beautiful website with a beautiful logo and a cool business name.
Can somebody actually buy something from you and prove the validity of this business before you go for it? Also, before leaving any sort of corporate job and going toward solo entrepreneurship, have a good amount of money set aside, because one of the major reasons that businesses fail is just liquidity and finance in general, because they can't sustain it.
I recommend a minimum six months of a runway for expenses for you and your family. I really like 12 months of expenses because that gives you the breathing room to learn, to pivot.
Plus, you need to have some dreams and passion and goals that you're moving toward so that you feel excited about actually doing the work.
What do you want people to take away from this book?
I want to help parents out there feel financial freedom from anxiety so that they can go back to creating memories with their spouse, creating memories with their kids, giving back to their community, taking care of their health, so they can live a long, beautiful life.
Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including "Retirement Bites: A Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future," "In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work," and "Never Too Old to Get Rich." Follow her on Bluesky and X.
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