The Best Jobs for Coast FIRE

Photo by Fuu J on Unsplash

• Coasting to financial independence means you still need to work to cover your lifestyle, but you get to work on your terms.
• Modifying your current job or industry may be a great option, providing high compensation and potentially high flexibility, but it may be hard to convince your employer to modify your current work arrangement.
• Coasting allows you to select any combination of seasonal, freelance, gig work, lifestyle, or low-stress employment that covers your living expenses and provides the flexibility you desire.
• Along your coasting journey, you are free to re-arrange your work situation as you see fit, understanding that different seasons of life will call for different types of work.

If you’ve decided that Coast FIRE is for you, or you’re simply coast-curious, you may find yourself wondering what the best jobs would be while coasting towards financial independence.

While some view the need to continue working as a potential downfall of coast FIRE, others view it as an opportunity to enjoy many of the benefits of a FI lifestyle right now, without having to wait till full FIRE. Coasting gives people the power to be selective with their work — only pursuing work that matches their wants and needs.

Ideally, the best coasting jobs will offer high levels of freedom, flexibility, autonomy, and high compensation. Let’s explore some of the best jobs for coasting to financial independence.

Your current job or industry, in a lesser or modified form.

Ah, the sweet path of least resistance. Likely the most lucrative, definitely the easiest, but not always the most realistic, is to continue in your current job, simply negotiating with your employer to achieve your ideal work-life balance.

For some, that could mean asking to reduce your hours to three-quarters or half time. For others, that could mean asking for flex-time — more freedom around what hours you do your work — or negotiating the ability to work remotely all or some of the time.

One of the significant advantages of staying in your current job is that you’re likely being compensated well, and of course, it’s the devil that you know. Changing jobs or downshifting to a less stressful but lower-paying job could mean a significant reduction in income, leading you to have to work more hours to cover your living expenses while coasting.

In addition, taking a new job comes with some added risks:

• What will your new employer or manager be like?
• Will they understand your desire for flexibility and freedom?
• What will the company culture be like?

By staying at your current job, you don’t have to discover the answers to these questions, although it may be worth the leap of faith depending on your current work environment.

One thing to consider when negotiating with your current employer is that you may get some pushback when you ask to cut back or modify your work arrangement. It makes sense: they’ve had you working the amount they like for so long. Why would they want to let that go?

It reminds me of an experience I had as an apprentice electrician back in the day. I started out making $12 bucks an hour, and within two years, after a few raises, I asked for $20 per hour. This wasn’t an outrageous request, I was doing everything right, busting my tail, and honing my craft, but for my employer that had initially hired me at $12 per hour, $20 felt a bit steep.

Fortunately, I could network in my field and quickly found multiple employers who were more than happy to pay me over $20 per hour. Unfortunately, despite my skills and experience qualifying me for $20 per hour and the market validating that, my old employer just couldn’t view me as anything more than the apprentice they hired for $12 per hour. So, I made the difficult but right decision to jump ship.

You may find yourself in a similar situation. If it’s too difficult for your employer to agree with your new desired work arrangement, put the feelers out in your industry. A new employer won’t have all the “sunk” feelings about how they just wish you were still full-time like the good old days. If you decide to move on, you can just tell your new employer what you’re looking for from the get-go, and they can choose to take or leave it.

By choosing to modify your current job or industry to match your coasting needs, you increase your odds of staying highly compensated while receiving the freedom and flexibility you’re hoping for.

tl;dr: staying in your current job or industry but modifying it to meet your desired coast lifestyle is the low-hanging fruit. It can provide high compensation and potentially high flexibility while being the “devil that you know.”

Seasonal Work

Let me start by saying: I love seasonal work. Every year, from January to mid-April, I know that I will be preparing tax returns with Intuit’s TurboTax. Once tax season is over, I can hang up the tax hat and let it sit until next season.

In my experience, there’s something very refreshing about having a definitive start and end-point to your work. In addition, I believe that there’s some benefit to viewing life seasonally.

For example, I view the start of the year as the tax grind — I know I will be working hard and making some money. Once that’s over, we head into the summer season, which I think is all about play, travel, and enjoying time with your family and kids. Once the summer season is over, I hang home for the fall, working on house projects and writing. Lastly, it’s time to head into the holiday season. For me, the holidays are all about seeing family, spending quality time, and nurturing your relationships.

The great thing about coasting is that it’s entirely up to you how you cover your living expenses for the year. If you need $50k to cover your lifestyle costs and you can earn half of that working seasonally for 3–4 months, more power to you. That gives you the rest of the year to earn the other half, working very part-time or flexibly. Or, if you decide that you want to grind hard for a season and cover your living expenses for the year, go for it. It’ll be challenging, but I imagine you’ll be pleased with your decision when you have the rest of the year to play.

If seasonal work sounds right for you, here are some seasonal jobs to consider:

• Tax preparer
• Tour Guide
• Camp Counselor
• Retail sales worker
• Tutor
• Holiday season delivery driver, package handler, or warehouse worker
• Event coordinator or staff
• Snow removal driver
• Ski/snowboard instructor or lift operator

While there are many benefits to seasonal work, it’s not without its drawbacks. Often, seasonal work is going to be a bit of a grind because it’s the busy season. For example, while some tax preparers may only need to work four months out of the year to cover their living expenses, they will often be head-down for those four months, sometimes putting in 50, 60, or even 70 hours per week during peak times. That said, it doesn’t always have to be that way, and you can often find a balance by being selective with your work decisions.

In addition, some seasonal jobs pay well while others do not. In the end, it comes down to your ability to strike the best balance between compensation and flexibility as you evaluate different seasonal opportunities.

tl;dr: seasonal work can provide a great lifestyle fit and potentially high compensation, but it may be a grind when you’re on. If you think about life in seasons, you may enjoy working in seasons, allowing you to focus on different areas of life during different times of the year.

Freelance or Independent Contracting

While I do love working seasonally, I’ve got to say that freelance is my real jam. I have had some pretty cool bosses in the past, but honestly, nobody has been as great to work for as myself. As my own boss, I always approve my vacation requests, and I’ve never given myself a hard time about taking time off for family, travel, or all the other fun and important things that life has to offer.

The true beauty of freelance or independent contracting is that you can pick and choose the jobs you want to take. You can scale work up or down as needed, and you have complete flexibility in how and when you get your work done. If you’ve made enough to cover your lifestyle costs for the year then everything else you earn is gravy and you can be very selective in the work you’ll take. Alternatively, if you are behind for the year and need to play catch-up, bring on the work!

Six months before I began coasting, I started applying for personal finance writing jobs on Upwork. I’ve enjoyed writing over the years and wondered if I would be good enough to get paid to do it.

It started slowly at first, but fast forward a year and a half, and I’ve built a very nice, flexible, lucrative freelance business as a personal finance writer. Some of my gigs have come through Upwork, and some have come through my network and even previous employers.

Depending on the type of work you can do, freelancing can rank high or off the charts for compensation and flexibility, two essential keys to proper coasting work. That said, it’s surely not for everyone as you need to be comfortable putting yourself out into the world, hustling to find gigs, demonstrating your value, delivering for your clients, and managing your time well.

I’ve also found that freelance work can fluctuate dramatically, which, depending on your goals, can be a good or a bad thing. There are some weeks where nobody needs me, and there are weeks where it feels like everyone has a project for me, and they all want it done right now. I’ve learned to be OK with the lumpiness and just view it as sometimes I get to play more, and sometimes I need to hustle through a bunch of work. As long as you’re on board with it, it’s all good.

Oh, and can I just mention again how great it is being your own boss? Back in the day, I used to dread having to ask employers for time off. Even if I knew it was totally fine for me to take a vacation, I still hated that I had to ask for permission to do so. I now have a fun goal to never be in a position where I need to ask permission to take time off. Freelancing allows me to do that.

As far as freelancing or independent contracting jobs go, the sky’s the limit, but here are some examples:

• Content or copywriter
• Photographer or videographer
• Life Coach
• Software Engineer
• Digital Marketing Consultant
• Financial Advisor or Coach

Of course, the type of freelance or contracting work you pursue will depend a lot on your unique interests and skills, but there is no shortage of options out there. If you’re unsure what you could get paid to do, just head to Upwork and start browsing all of the available jobs — you never know what’ll jump out to you.

tl;dr: freelance or contracting work can offer incredible flexibility and compensation, with the added bonus of being your own boss. With all its perks comes the added responsibility of managing your time effectively, and marketing your skills to potential customers.

Gig work: Uber, Doordash, Lyft, Airbnb, Turo, and more.

The way I think about work and income at this point is: if all else fails, I know I can drive Uber or Lyft and earn what my family needs to cover our costs. So while it wouldn’t be my first choice, I know that it’s a backup plan if needed.

It’s an incredible feeling to know that you’ve got your first choice, and you’re going to do everything you can to make it work, but if everything else falls through, you could drive around and pay the bills while you figure something else out.

I think the concept of gig work is phenomenal: work when you want, as much or as little as you want.

Another great option is to utilize your home or vehicles to create additional income. For example, we’ve started Turo’ing a second car that used to just sit in our driveway and now earns us anywhere from $500 to $1000 per month net of all fees. That’s an additional $6k to $12k per year in income from a car that would sit unused most of the time.

I’ve heard similar experiences with people listing their additional rooms or an entire home or guest suite on Airbnb. It can be a great way to create an additional income stream, utilize your empty spaces, and probably meet some great people in the process. Or, another option through Airbnb would be to set up your own Airbnb experience, designing and delivering a unique experience that visitors to your area might be interested in.

We live in a golden age of gig work, and I think it’s only going to keep getting better. As more and more businesses and industries begin to tap into the gig economy, there will be an increasing number of unique options available for gig workers. Gig work allows for ultimate flexibility and freedom and can provide a great backup or primary plan, depending on your goals while coasting to financial independence.

tl;dr: gig work offers ultimate flexibility and can be a comforting backup plan to any other work arrangement. In addition, by thinking outside the box, gig work can allow you to create additional income streams through hosting platforms like Turo or Airbnb.

Passion or lifestyle work

One of the great things about coasting to financial independence is you can choose to pursue passion or lifestyle work. As long as it’ll cover your living expenses, why not decide to shift to a career that you’re passionate about?

At some point, I would love to get certified as a Yoga Instructor and teach a couple of classes a week. Not only would the certification process be a major growth opportunity for my individual yoga practice, but I also think it would be a very rewarding job.

For others, pursuing passion work might mean deciding to teach English as a second language in a foreign country, combining the fantastic benefits of work and travel, or deciding to take a job in a national park, doubling down on time in the great outdoors.

While passion or lifestyle work might not provide the highest compensation, the benefits come from the ability to spend time doing something you love while still getting paid. So ultimately you need to decide which trade-offs you are willing to make between flexibility, passion, and compensation.

tl;dr: if you’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a yoga instructor, coasting gives you the freedom to explore that opportunity. When money is no longer the most important factor, you can be very selective in how you want to trade your time for money, allowing you to pursue passion or lifestyle work.

Low-stress employment

Depending on your unique journey to reach coast FIRE, low-stress employment may be just what the doctor ordered. During my time in the financial independence community, I’ve talked to many people who are just straight-up burned out and can’t bear to stay in their current job or industry any longer. Often, they fantasize about what it would be like to get a low-stress job at their local library, coffee shop, or recreation center.

I think that low-stress employment may be the right fit in certain situations, but my guess is it would be more of a short-term phase to help you reset, rather than a long-term coasting job. Often, in low-stress jobs, you will be offered low pay and low flexibility, in exchange for that low-stress work environment. That said, it may be just what you need right now as you regroup, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Here are some low-stress jobs to consider:

• Dog walker or sitter
• Barista
• Grocery worker
• Substitute teacher
• Librarian
• Climbing Instructor
• Hair Stylist

tl;dr: while low-stress employment has its appeal, it can often be accompanied by low pay and low flexibility — though that’s not always the case. For many, low-stress employment may be necessary for a period of healing or recovery after burnout.

Coasting offers the freedom to choose.

In the end, coasting allows you to design a work setup that fits your unique goals. For example, I’ve chosen to combine freelance, seasonal, and gig work to create the perfect work arrangement for me and my family at this point. That said, one of the most important things to remember is that whatever you decide to do now doesn’t have to be what you do forever.

Your income needs and work preferences will change over time, so don’t hesitate to shift your work setup around as well. If you go through periods where you need more income, scale work up to meet that need. If you go through periods where you want to prioritize flexibility and autonomy over income, you can do that.

Remember: nothing is fixed when you’re coasting — everything is fluid, customizable, and unique to your goals, income needs, and current situation.