I'm 30 With $100K Saved — When Can I Quit?

The Starting Point

You're 30 years old with $100,000 saved and invested. You earn a decent income, you're saving some money each month, and you have a question that won't go away: "When can I actually quit?"

Let's run the numbers on four different scenarios to find out.

Scenario 1: The Average Saver

Income: $80,000/year
Expenses: $4,500/month ($54,000/year)
Savings: $2,167/month
Savings Rate: 32.5%

Quit Number: $54,000 × 25 = $1,350,000
Quit Score: 7 (you're 7% there)
Quit Date: Age 50 — about 20 years

Not bad. You'd be out by 50, which is 15 years ahead of traditional retirement. But 20 years is still a long time. Let's see how to compress it.

Scenario 2: The Expense Cutter

Same income, but you cut monthly expenses from $4,500 to $3,500 by downsizing your apartment and cutting discretionary spending.

Income: $80,000/year
Expenses: $3,500/month ($42,000/year)
Savings: $3,167/month
Savings Rate: 47.5%

Quit Number: $42,000 × 25 = $1,050,000 (down $300K!)
Quit Score: 10
Quit Date: Age 43 — about 13 years

Cutting $1,000/month in expenses did two things: lowered the target by $300,000 and increased monthly savings by $1,000. The result? You quit 7 years sooner. That's the power of expenses.

Scenario 3: The Income Booster

Same expenses as Scenario 1, but you increase income to $120,000 through a job switch or side income.

Income: $120,000/year
Expenses: $4,500/month ($54,000/year)
Savings: $5,500/month
Savings Rate: 55%

Quit Number: $1,350,000 (unchanged — same expenses)
Quit Score: 7
Quit Date: Age 43 — about 13 years

Same result as cutting expenses! But notice: the Quit Number didn't change. You're just filling the gap faster. If you can do BOTH (boost income AND cut expenses), the results compound.

Scenario 4: The Double Move

Boost income to $120,000 AND cut expenses to $3,500/month.

Income: $120,000/year
Expenses: $3,500/month ($42,000/year)
Savings: $6,500/month
Savings Rate: 65%

Quit Number: $1,050,000
Quit Score: 10
Quit Date: Age 39 — about 9 years

By pulling both levers, you'd be financially independent at 39. That's 11 years sooner than Scenario 1 and 26 years ahead of traditional retirement.

The Shortcut: Alternative Paths

All four scenarios above assume regular FIRE. But there are faster paths:

Coast FIRE

With $100,000 already invested at age 30, that money grows to $761,000 by age 60 with no additional contributions (at 7% returns). If your Quit Number at 60 is $1,050,000, your Coast Number today is only about $138,000. You're already 72% of the way to Coast FIRE.

Hit $138,000 (which takes just a few more months of saving) and you never need to save for retirement again. You just need to cover today's expenses.

Barista FIRE

If you could earn $1,500/month in part-time work, your Barista Quit Number drops to $750,000. You'd hit that by age 40 in Scenario 1, or age 36 in Scenario 4.

The One Variable That Matters Most

Across all four scenarios, the single biggest lever was expenses. Cutting $1,000/month moved the quit date forward by 7 years. Increasing income by $40,000/year moved it forward by 7 years. But doing both moved it by 11 years.

Your savings rate — the gap between earning and spending — is what drives your timeline. Everything else is secondary.

Run Your Own Numbers

Our calculator takes 60 seconds and gives you your exact Quit Number, Quit Score, and Quit Date. Then you can play with the What-If sliders to see how changes to income and expenses affect your timeline.

You've already got $100K. That puts you ahead of 90% of 30-year-olds. Now find out when you can quit.