PLAN FOR THE LIFE YOU WANT
Your money, your milestones, your future. One timeline for the whole household.
THE BIG PICTURE
YOUR LIFE AT A GLANCE
Choose two or three plans. Compare the working draft with saved alternatives.
Compare saved versions using each scenario’s saved return path. Keep the same return path to isolate other changes.
MAKE IT PERSONAL
Optional · plan for what’s ahead.
Add costs or income beyond your everyday budget.
Create related entries together, then review before adding.
Today’s dollars are inflated to the event’s start age. Amount in event year uses the exact amount entered. Add a separate one-time withdrawal for each age and amount you need. These fund spending outside your modeled accounts, not transfers between them. One-time events happen at the beginning of the year; recurring expenses include both start and end ages. Incoming money must be net of taxes and costs. Uninvested proceeds are excluded, not tracked as cash.
FOLLOW THE NUMBERS
End-of-year balances. Edit any return to override that year.
Positive flows are contributions (including employer match in pre-tax). In automatic mode, negative flows are gross withdrawals, including cash needed for taxes; manual mode retains net withdrawal flows. ¹ Brokerage, all-retirement and total portfolio balances subtract accumulated unmet spending. Shortfalls before any retirement account is accessible are assigned to brokerage; later shortfalls to the all-retirement total. These negative balances are planning deficits, not account debt. Deficits carry forward without interest or investment returns; they are not used to calculate taxes or withdrawals. Individual retirement account columns show actual modeled assets. ² Unfunded spending shows each year’s new shortfall. Later assets may offset a displayed deficit, but the first failure year remains flagged. Contributions exclude employer match in the two person-specific contribution columns. Automatic mode shows gross benefits and total annual taxes separately. Manual mode shows net benefits and separate benefit taxes. ³ Investments + cash − debt also subtracts cumulative unmet spending and excludes homes, vehicles and business assets; it is not total net worth. Loan balances assume scheduled payments are made; a funding gap means the payment plan is not fully funded. Annual loan payments are averaged across the year for portfolio cash-flow timing. RMDs are included within pre-tax withdrawals, not added on top. HSA is included in portfolio totals, but available only for qualified healthcare in this model. Health FSA is a spending benefit, not an investment account. Dollar display also applies to the table.
UNDER THE HOOD
This prototype follows the annual ledger of the “Investment roadmap - Updated” model. The sample assumptions are illustrative, and changing the inputs recalculates the full projection.
Income grows with annual raises and periodic promotions, up to your income cap. Each person earns income and contributes until their own stop-work age. Pre-tax contributions reduce that person’s modeled taxable pay. Roth workplace and Roth IRA contributions come from after-tax pay. Income left after contributions and expenses goes to brokerage savings.
When one person stops working, the other person’s income and contributions continue. Social Security and pensions start independently. Shared brokerage funds the remaining spending; each account follows its own access age, independent of employment. Entered regular Roth IRA contribution basis can be used earlier.
Remaining brokerage assets are spent first. Accessible pre-tax retirement savings come next, with withdrawals grossed up for taxes. Accessible Roth workplace savings, then Roth IRA savings, cover remaining spending. Income above spending and contributions goes to shared brokerage.
RMDs are on by default, separately for each person's pre-tax balance. The inferred birth year is plan year minus current age; use year-end ages or override the RMD start age. The standard start is 73 for 1951–1959 births and 75 for 1960 onward. We divide the prior year-end balance by the IRS Uniform Lifetime divisor, transfer the distribution to brokerage at year start and tax it as ordinary income. The same money can pay spending; unused proceeds remain invested. Starting pre-tax balances stand in for last December 31 in the first plan year. Lifetime Roth RMDs, inherited-account rules, still-working delays, first-year deferral, and the more-than-10-years-younger sole-beneficiary spouse table are excluded. See IRS distribution tables and RMD regulations.
Healthcare is optional and added to other spending. Per-person budgets change at retirement and Medicare enrollment; healthcare growth already includes inflation. Enter premiums after employer support and subsidies; no ACA subsidy, IRMAA or pre-tax premium calculation is included. Remove duplicate amounts from base spending. HSA and health FSA reimbursements reduce the healthcare bill once, while contributions separately reduce cash available. Health contributions and reimbursements use the model’s monthly cash-flow approximation; the yearly limit assumes eligibility for the entire year. HSAs grow with the portfolio and remain available for eligible healthcare after contributions end. FSA spending is limited to the modeled out-of-pocket budget; unused elections are forfeited without carryover. Limited-purpose FSA uses only the dental/vision share. Active general-purpose FSA coverage is assumed to cover the household and blocks new HSA contributions. HSA eligibility is assumed for full years until the selected stop or Medicare age, without mid-year proration or retroactive Medicare adjustments. HSA contributions can continue after retirement as direct contributions if eligibility remains. Payroll contributions reduce income and employee payroll tax; direct contributions reduce income tax only. Manual mode estimates contribution tax savings against employment income only. Future contribution caps use inflation-indexed 2026 limits, with fixed $1,000 age-55 HSA catch-ups. Family HSA limits are shared, allocated to You first, and include employer money. The annual table shows actual capped contributions. Only the chosen share of Medicare premiums can be reimbursed from HSA; exclude Medigap. No dependent-care FSA, nonmedical HSA withdrawals, old-receipt reimbursement, or state-specific HSA tax exceptions are modeled. See IRS health account guidance and 2026 FSA limits.
These are illustrations of return sequence risk, not historically calibrated simulations or success probabilities. Each range includes both endpoint ages and must join the next without gaps. Down years are strictly negative (at most −0.01%); other years may be flat. Random bounded values are adjusted to match each range's arithmetic target, then shuffled. Tight targets can push many years toward a limit. Sample returns use the saved seed and rules; older imported plans retain their saved ordering. The compound annual growth figure uses the same returns with no cash flows; it is not your portfolio's personal rate of return. Re-forecast changes the saved seed; changing ordinary spending or income does not reshuffle the path. Real investment returns have no guaranteed upper or lower bound. The plan file saves the settings and seed, and CSV exports the actual yearly path.
Historical mode replays the most recent full window of annual S&P 500 returns including dividends from the NYU Stern / Aswath Damodaran dataset, in chronological order through 2025. A plan with 60 annual rows uses 1966–2025. Pin a historical start year to keep the sequence stable when changing the plan length. The full pinned window must fit 1928–2025. With a start of 0, the latest available window shifts and can change every mapped year. The table shows each source year. This is a US-stock historical scenario, not a prediction or a stock/bond allocation; your inflation, taxes and cash-flow assumptions still apply. Individual return overrides are separate from the other modes. The downloaded Excel plan preserves the mode and overrides and includes a historical replay sheet. The bundled 1928–2025 dataset was updated January 5, 2026; early years use a predecessor stock series. View the historical data source.
Cash is entered separately from brokerage and earns 0% here. Keep it aside as a reserve, or allow spending shortfalls to draw on it before investments. It is not automatically replenished from surplus income. The three portfolio tiles show investments, including HSA when enabled; cash and debt are separate in the year-by-year table and chart inspector. Loans are Life Events with an outstanding balance, fixed annual interest rate and monthly principal-plus-interest payment. For an existing loan, enter the balance at your current age. Future loans start at their selected age; borrowing does not create modeled cash or an asset. Interest accrues monthly, and payments stop after the final partial payment. Taxes, insurance and HOA must be separate recurring expenses. Existing recurring events are retained; convert one to Loan / debt and enter its current balance to track payoff. Mortgage interest deductions, refinancing, variable rates, fees, loan forgiveness and missed-payment penalties are not calculated. See CFPB guidance on mortgage payment components.
Money received is entered after taxes, debt payoff and selling costs. The selected investment percentage enters brokerage at the beginning of the event year and increases cost basis; remaining proceeds are excluded from portfolio and spending coverage. One-time expenses are paid at the beginning of the year from available cash (if enabled), brokerage, then each accessible retirement account in the usual order. Taxes on funding withdrawals are included. Same-year invested receipts are added before expenses regardless of their display order. Assets sold are not otherwise tracked; do not record transfers from existing portfolio accounts as new money. Toggle Include to compare uncertain events. Events outside the plan’s age range have no effect.
Actual invested assets and cumulative unmet spending are shown separately below the chart. Bridge coverage uses the same cash-flow model and is not a guarantee. Event impacts remove or add one event/group at a time with identical annual returns; the changes cannot be added together. Sensitivities illustrate one change at a time rather than recommend a financial decision. Saved scenario comparisons use each saved plan’s returns; keep the same return path for controlled comparisons. Cash-flow charts exclude one-time inflows and withdrawals from income and show taxes from withdrawals separately in the annual table. Spending charts exclude taxes and investment contributions.
The calculator runs locally in your browser. This tab keeps the working draft and current view through refresh. “Remember on this device” also restores them on later visits. Named scenarios remember their editing view. Clearing browser data removes these local copies. “Save scenario” stores a named snapshot in this browser, even with Remember off. “Download Excel” downloads an Excel file containing the working plan and named scenarios. Incomplete or invalid plans save as drafts; their Draft state sheet is authoritative and should be resumed in the website. Complete plans retain editable input sheets. Named scenarios are available on this browser and device only; clearing browser data removes them. Download Excel for a portable backup. Save updates the selected scenario. Use the scenario menu to rename it or save a new version. Undo restores the last ten supported actions during this visit, including re-forecasting, event deletion and starting a new scenario. Undo after Re-forecast restores the exact previous market path, manual overrides and plan values. No login, ads or analytics are included in this prototype.