I’m 36 with enough invested to skip my Roth IRA contributions. Should I really stop adding money?

On episode #1145 of the How to Money podcast, guest Jesse Cramer explained why he and his wife skipped funding their Roth IRAs in 2025 for the first time in more than a decade. His reasoning rests on a concept called Coast FI:

“We have enough money in there today that I could probably never add another of my own dollars there. And just let it compound for 20, 25 years and be totally comfortable in retirement.”

The stakes here are real. If you stop contributing based on a return assumption that turns out to be too generous, you arrive at 60 with a shortfall measured in six figures and no good way to catch up. If you keep grinding contributions you do not actually need, you sacrifice today’s flexibility for retirement money you would have had anyway. The whole decision hinges on one calculation most people never run.

The verdict: Coast FI is legitimate, but the input is everything

Cramer’s logic is sound. Coast FI is the point at which your existing invested balance, left alone, compounds into enough to retire on without another dollar of contribution. At 36, he projected his investable assets at a reasonable rate of return out to ages 50, 55, and 60 and concluded the answer was yes. When his family faced two home projects and a baby born in March, skipping the Roth was a deliberate choice.

Here is the mechanic. Compound growth follows a rough doubling cadence tied to your assumed annual return. At a 7% real return (returns after inflation), money roughly doubles every decade. So $200,000 invested today at age 36 grows toward roughly $400,000 by 46, roughly $800,000 by 56, and approaches $1.6 million by 66. Nothing added. That is the engine Cramer is leaning on.

Run the same balance at a 5% real return and the doubling stretches to about every 14 years. The same $200,000 looks more like $500,000 to $600,000 by your mid-60s. That is the difference between a comfortable retirement and a tight one, all from changing one assumption by two percentage points.

Plug your own numbers in above. The point Cramer is making only works if the figure that comes out exceeds what you actually need in retirement, in today’s dollars, after accounting for the spending you expect to do.

The assumption that flips the answer

The variable that decides whether Coast FI is real for you is your assumed real return. A reasonable starting point: the S&P 500 has returned about 260% over the past ten years and roughly 80% over the past five. Those are nominal numbers in a strong stretch. Long-run real equity returns sit closer to 6% to 7%, and the 10-year Treasury yields about 4.5%, which is your risk-free floor.

If you assume 8% real and you are actually going to get 5%, you will believe you have reached Coast FI when you have not. The honest test: run the calculation twice, once at 7% real and once at 4% real. If both numbers still cover your retirement need, you have genuine flexibility. If only the optimistic case works, you have not coasted yet. You are betting.

Cramer’s situation also illustrates the other half of the trade. Skipping a Roth contribution costs you the tax-free growth on that year’s $7,000 contribution limit. Over 25 years at 7%, that single missed year compounds into a meaningful chunk of forgone tax-free balance. That is the price of using the Roth slot for a baby and a roof instead. For a household that has already hit Coast FI, it is a price worth paying. For one that has not, it is a quiet hole in the retirement plan.

What to actually do this week

1. Pull every retirement and brokerage balance into one number. Exclude home equity unless you plan to sell.
2. Project that number forward to your target retirement age twice: once at 7% real and once at 4% real. The calculator above handles this in seconds.
3. Compare both outputs to your estimated annual retirement spending multiplied by 25. If both clear it, you have reached Coast FI and can redirect contributions when life demands.
4. If only the 7% case clears, keep contributing. You are still building.
5. Revisit the calculation every year. Markets, spending, and your timeline all move.

Coast FI gives you permission to pause contributions when a baby, a furnace, or a real estate closing pulls a year’s Roth deposit off the table, then resume when life settles.