Staying is also a road.
Working full pace until the number lands is one way out. There are five others. Four days. A real break. Work that just covers the life. Another country. Or stopping today, on what you already have. This page prices all six on your numbers: what each road does to the date, and what it hands you back now. I won’t tell you which one to take. Fear rounds every alternative up to impossible, and a price tag is the antidote.
Explain it like I’m five
Most people picture one way out: work full speed, save, stop. There are more. Drop to four days. Take a break, then go back. Switch to work that only covers the bills. Live in another country. This page counts how long each road takes, so fear doesn’t get to guess.
New to all of it? Start from zero: ten short lessons that assume nothing.
The Six Roads
€42,000 in, €30,000 out: €1,000 a month invests.
The six dates
25 yrs 2 moto the number, on the road you’re on.
The road you’re on
Full pace, as is, until the pot covers the life.
Four days a week
The same work, one day handed back. Priced at 80% of your pay.
a day a week of your life back, starting now
The break
6 months off, unpaid. The pot pays for the life while you’re away, then you go back at full pace.
A 6-month break moves the exit 1 yr 6 mo later, and hands you 6 months of life now.
Work that covers the life
Swap to work you’d choose that pays for the life and nothing more. Nothing new invests; the pot finishes the climb on its own.
work you’d actually pick, every week from now on
Another country
Live the exit where prices are different. Your pay stays where it is until then; the number itself reprices.
The same life prices at €28,362 a year there, so the number becomes €851k.
Whole-economy price levels, EU-27 = 100, from Eurostat and the World Bank. Country averages: rents inside one country vary more than any index shows.
Stop now
No more earning, from today.
Drawn at your multiple, today’s pot prices €1,667 a year: 5.6% of the life you priced.
Spent at your full €30,000 pace instead, it carries you roughly 1 yr 9 mo at a steady 6% real.
Whether a pot survives real markets and a real lifespan is odds, not arithmetic: The Three Endings runs yours.
None of these is a recommendation. The point is smaller and harder: staying is a choice too, and now it has a price tag like the rest.
Real terms throughout, like every calculator here: today’s euros, the steady real return you set above, taxes ignored on the way up. Four days is priced at 80% of pay. The break is unpaid, and the pot pays for the life while you’re out. Covering work pays for the life exactly. Another country reprices the exit life only; your pay stays where it is until you go. Stop now shows two honest numbers, the yearly income the pot prices at your multiple and how long it lasts at full pace on a steady return, and steady is precisely what markets never are: the odds live in The Three Endings. One road at a time, no combinations. Not advice.
The link carries these exact numbers; nothing about you is stored.
What Kind of FIRE? owns the finish lines, which pot buys which kind of exit, its coast-at-65 row included. This page owns the travelling: one finish line, six ways to move toward it. What Kind of FIRE?
The whole map is Geoarbitrage’s job: the same life priced across every country it covers, cheapest to dearest. The row above takes one move and shows you the date. The Geoarbitrage Map
The Exit Calculator walks the first road in detail: the chart, the trim, the coast point. This page is what happens to its answer when the road changes. The Exit Calculator
Nothing to sell
No affiliate links. No paywall. Nothing on this page is for sale, and nobody pays me to make one road look better than another.
Not advice
Arithmetic on the numbers you typed, under the stated conventions. Whether any road fits your contract, your country’s rules or your nerves is yours to judge, ideally with people who know you. Not advice.
Common questions
- Which road should I take?
- That’s the one question this page refuses to answer. It prices; you choose. What I will say is what the essay under this tool says better: staying put is not the neutral option. It’s a road with a price like the others, paid in years at a desk. Once all six have honest price tags, fear loses its favourite trick, which is rounding every alternative up to impossible.
- Why does a six-month break cost more than six months?
- Early on it does. While you’re out, nothing new invests and the pot pays for the life, so you lose the months, the contributions, and the growth both would have earned. At this page’s default numbers, a six-month break moves the exit about eighteen months. But the pot never stops compounding while you’re away, and near the number compounding is most of the engine: run the same break with a big pot and it can cost barely more than its own length. Early breaks are the expensive kind. Late ones are nearly free, which is worth knowing before you write a sabbatical off as reckless. And this page prices the unpaid version: if your employer pays part of a sabbatical, your break is cheaper than mine.
- Is four days really 80% of pay?
- It’s this page’s stated convention, not a law. Real four-day arrangements land all over the place: some employers pro-rate exactly, some negotiate better or worse, and tax rarely falls in a straight line, so take-home often drops by less than a fifth. The row shows the shape of the trade, one day a week of life against a slower date. Your own offer is the number that matters; this page shows you what kind of number to ask for.
- Where do the country prices come from?
- Eurostat’s price-level index for European countries and the World Bank’s for the rest, rebased so the EU-27 average is 100: the same data behind Geoarbitrage, refreshed on its yearly cycle. They’re whole-economy averages, so they hide the spread inside a country, and rent varies most of all. Use the row for the shape of a move; price the actual town before you believe a date.
- Can I combine roads, four days in a cheaper country?
- On paper, yes: every combination is just different numbers in the Exit Calculator. This page prices one road at a time on purpose. The point isn’t engineering the perfect blend; it’s seeing that the alternatives have prices at all, and that the prices are smaller than fear quotes them. When one road looks close, take its numbers to the calculator and tune from there.
Nothing here is financial or investment advice: it’s arithmetic and education. Every tool runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent anywhere or saved. Decisions about your money are yours, ideally with a licensed adviser. I’m happily not one.
Bring me a challenge.
The Exit Audit, then ninety minutes: a straight verdict, real alternatives with their pros and cons, and your first move. If you want someone to nod along, I’m the wrong person to pay.