Retirement Planner

Next steps

Personal suggestions, each tested on your plan with the same 100 simulated market futures, so you can see how much it helps. Takes a few seconds.

What if…?

Click an idea to see it as a dashed line on the net worth chart above and how it changes your chance of success. Click again to remove it. Your plan is not changed unless you use "make this change".

Where the money goes

Money coming in on the left, where it goes on the right, for one year. Move the slider to pick the year.

Healthcare costs over your lifetime

Spending by category

Money lasts

Percentile fan chart (net worth, today's money)

Spending each year (today's money)

The range of yearly spending across the simulated futures. With "Fixed" spending the lines sit together; with variable methods they spread out as spending follows markets.

When it goes wrong: how bad?

A plan that "fails" might run a little short in its last year, or run out at 75. And a flexible spending method can "succeed" only by cutting spending a lot. These figures show how much of your planned retirement spending actually gets paid.

What's left at the end

Savings left at the end of the plan across all simulated futures (today's dollars), compared with what you had when you retired.

Rich, broke or no longer alive

Combines the simulated futures with US life tables (Social Security Administration, 2023). For each year it shows the chance you are alive and well off, alive and short of money, or no longer alive. These are population averages, not a prediction for you. Set gender under Plan inputs for better figures.

What matters most? Sensitivity map

Changes two inputs at a time and reruns the plan for every pair, using the same simulated markets for each square. Greener is better. The square with a thick border is closest to your plan as it stands. Click a square (or move with the arrow keys and press Enter) to copy those two settings into your plan.

Highest safe withdrawal rate for each historical start year

For every year since 1928: if your retirement had started that year, what is the most you could take from savings in the first year (as a % of savings then, raised with inflation after that, like the 4% rule) without savings running out before the plan ends? Your other income, taxes and plan length are included. Red bars are below your plan's own rate.

Safe floor and upside

Uses the "smoothed spending" idea: one steady yearly amount on top of your essential costs. Floor: what you could still spend every year if every stock you own became worthless in the first year and everything else earned only 1% above inflation. Upside: what each of 100 simulated futures could have supported, if you had known it in advance. The gap between them is the part of your lifestyle that depends on markets.

What would it take?

Finds the savings you would need today, or the earliest age you could retire, to reach a chance of success you choose (200 simulated futures each try; takes a few seconds).

Maximum sustainable spending

Finds the largest uniform scaling of your planned expenses that still works (similar to consumption smoothing).

Lifetime consumption smoothing

Finds the highest constant discretionary spending (today's money, every year of life, on top of essential expenses) that your resources support, leaving the legacy you choose. Applying it switches the withdrawal strategy to "consumption smoothing".

Replay a historical sequence

What return would I need?

Finds how much higher (or lower) average stock and bond returns would have to be for your plan to reach a chosen chance of success, using 200 random futures. Useful to see how much your plan depends on good markets.

Pension: lump sum or monthly? Single or joint?

If your employer offers a choice, enter both offers. Amounts are in the dollars the plan quotes. The comparison uses US life tables (population averages, not a prediction for you) and the return you think you could earn on the lump sum. It ignores taxes, which are similar either way if the lump sum is rolled into an IRA.

Taxes, IRMAA and marginal rate

RMDs and Roth conversions

Tax optimizer

Searches 40 combinations of withdrawal order × Roth-conversion strategy × capital-gains harvesting (average returns) and ranks them. Funded plans rank first.

Estate & legacy

Federal estate tax: $15M exemption per person (2026, indexed), 40% rate, portability assumed for couples. State estate tax: 2026 exemptions, top rate applied to the excess (an upper-bound estimate). Heirs' income tax on inherited pre-tax accounts uses the rate in Plan inputs.

Should I convert to Roth this year?

Moving money from a traditional 401(k)/IRA to a Roth means paying income tax now so later withdrawals are tax-free. Try an amount to see the tax today, whether it pushes you into a higher tax bracket, and the long-run effect on your plan.

Roth 5-year clock

Each Roth conversion has its own 5-year clock: before age 59½, taking converted money out of a Roth within 5 years (counted from January 1 of the conversion year) costs a 10% penalty. Contributions come out first and are always free; then conversions, oldest first; earnings last.

Break-even tax rate for a Roth conversion

Converting means paying tax now instead of later. The break-even rate is the tax rate you (or your heirs) would have to pay later for converting and not converting to come out the same. If you expect to pay more than that later, converting helps. Figures fill in from your plan; change any of them.

What extra income really costs (the "tax torpedo")

Your tax bracket is not the whole story. Extra income can also make more of your Social Security taxable, raise Medicare premiums two years later (IRMAA) and shrink health-insurance credits. This shows the real share of each extra $1,000 that goes to tax in the chosen year. Today's dollars, average returns.

Where your income sits in the tax brackets

Required minimum distributions (RMDs) by year

From the age the law requires (73 or 75 depending on birth year) you must take a minimum out of traditional accounts each year. Average returns; today's money unless noted.

Save the max this year

How much to put in from each paycheck to reach this year's legal limit by December 31.

Will I lose part of my employer match?

If you save a high percentage of pay, you can hit the yearly 401(k) limit before December. Many plans then stop the match for the rest of the year unless they do a year-end "true-up". Check your plan's rules.

Cost of taking money out early

What you keep if you take money out of a 401(k) or IRA before 59½: income tax plus a 10% penalty. Exceptions to the penalty include leaving your job in or after the year you turn 55 (that employer's 401(k) only), disability, and 72(t) payments.

Self-employed: Solo 401(k), SEP-IRA and self-employment tax

If you work for yourself with no employees, a Solo 401(k) lets you save as both the "employee" (up to the normal 401(k) limit) and the "employer" (up to 20% of your profit after half the self-employment tax). A SEP-IRA allows only the employer part. 2026 limits.

Roth conversion strategy explorer

Each strategy converts during the window set in Plan inputs → Roth conversions. Estate is after an assumed heir tax rate on pre-tax accounts.

Scenarios

Every saved plan is a scenario. Use Duplicate to make a what-if, change it, then compare.

If one of us dies

Tests your plan with each partner dying in every possible year, one at a time: does the money still last for the one left behind, and how much life insurance would keep the plan working? Average returns, today's dollars. The survivor's spending follows "Spending after a partner dies" under Plan inputs → Household.

Run history

The app quietly keeps your last 20 results on this device with what you changed each time, so you can see which changes helped. Click Load to bring a past version back as a new plan.

Where to hold stocks and bonds (asset location)

Keeps the same total amount in stocks today, but moves it between accounts. Stocks grow faster, so holding them in Roth accounts (never taxed) and bonds in pre-tax accounts (taxed later anyway) can cut lifetime taxes. Bonds in a taxable account pay interest that is taxed every year, unless they are munis. Each option runs your whole plan with average returns plus 200 simulated futures.

Bond ladder

A ladder is a set of bonds (or CDs) that each mature in a different year, so a known amount of money arrives every year. It is often used to cover the years between retiring and Social Security. TIPS are US Treasury bonds whose value rises with inflation, so the payments keep their buying power. Enter today's quotes if you have them; the suggested yields come from your market assumptions.

For TIPS, enter the yield after inflation (the "real yield" shown in TIPS quotes).

Taxable bonds, Treasuries or munis?

Treasury interest is free of state income tax. Municipal ("muni") bond interest is free of federal tax and usually of your own state's tax, but munis pay less. This compares what each keeps after tax in your plan's tax situation in the year you pick (federal tax including the 3.8% investment income tax, and state tax, on $1,000 more interest).

Track actual progress

Record your real net worth periodically (e.g. monthly or quarterly); each entry is compared with what this plan projected for that date.

Strategy check-in

Uses your latest entry above. It re-runs the plan as if your savings had started that much higher or lower, and tells you whether to stay the course or how much to adjust spending to keep the same chance of success. A rule of thumb, not advice.

Freedom days

How many days of a year your savings could already pay for, if you took a safe percentage out each year. Each new day of freedom costs the amount shown.

How long until financial independence? The spread

Keeps you working and saving as planned, and counts the years until your savings (today's money) first reach the FIRE number above, for every historical start year or for simulated futures. Markets decide much of the timing, so this shows a range, not one date.

Import transactions

Instead of bank sync: export CSVs from your bank or card (Date, Description, Amount, or Debit/Credit, plus an optional Category) and load them here. Repeated imports are merged and duplicates skipped. Everything stays in your browser.

Transactions