Retirement Planner

• Nine primary spending rules, with eight comparison-ready withdrawal strategies for side-by-side analysis
• Social Security and pension income stream modeling
• Spending adjustments for healthcare and lifestyle changes
• Historical and Monte Carlo simulation modes
• Progressive 2026 tax mode with filing-status-aware brackets, taxable Social Security, and optional IRMAA modeling
• Tax-aware account breakdown with explicit withdrawal sequencing and Roth conversion modeling
• Allocation glidepaths with age-based transition milestones
• Saved comparison inputs that reopen with the analysis and use the latest current-engine result
• Failure-year analysis showing which conditions cause plan depletion
• Annual account-flow summaries for tax-aware plans
• Cash flow and tax decomposition chart with an explicit reconciliation row whenever summary medians do not add up exactly

• Test whether a portfolio can fund a target spending plan over a fixed retirement horizon.
• Compare spending rules and see how much stability each one trades for a higher or lower success rate.
• Stress-test a plan against poor historical sequences and Monte Carlo variability before changing allocation or spending.
• Add Social Security, pensions, annuities, federally tax-exempt interest, state-taxable federally tax-exempt interest, and one-time or recurring spending changes. Include cash flows that materially affect withdrawal needs.
• Compare several named plans side by side when deciding between different retirement ages, spending levels, or allocations.

The planner simulates retirement one year at a time. In each year, the selected spending rule sets spending and income streams offset withdrawals. The planner then applies spending adjustments, and the remaining portfolio grows by that year's real return. Values are shown in constant purchasing-power dollars.

Historical analysis is always available. You can enable Monte Carlo to add a second stochastic result:

• Initial portfolio value: starting balance in today's dollars.
• Asset allocation: percentage weights across supported retirement asset classes. Weights must sum to 100%.
• Allocation glidepath: optional milestones that replace the base allocation from a chosen age onward.
• Time horizon: retirement start age and end age. This defines the full decumulation window.
• Annual spending: either a fixed real dollar target or, for percent-of-portfolio mode, an initial withdrawal rate.
• Spending rule: how spending adjusts over time.
• Income streams: recurring income that reduces portfolio withdrawals during the years it is active.
• Spending adjustments: one-time or recurring spending changes such as travel, health care, or a mortgage payoff.
• Tax-aware account breakdown: split the starting value across taxable, traditional, and Roth buckets. This enables the decumulation policy controls.
• Decumulation policy: choose withdrawal sequencing, set Roth and taxable balance floors, control surplus destination, and optionally model Roth conversions.
• Tax context: household filing status, resident state, ACA inputs, IRMAA priors, and taxable cost-basis ratio come from the linked household. The planner applies the shared progressive tax kernel and optional IRMAA estimation, including a Part D IRMAA add-on when selected.

Enable the account breakdown when the source of withdrawals matters. The planner can model required minimum distributions, different tax treatment across taxable / traditional / Roth balances, explicit withdrawal ordering, and optional Roth conversions.

The sequencing controls support taxable-first, traditional-first, Roth-last, proportional, bracket-aware, and custom ordering. You can also preserve a Roth floor, keep a minimum taxable cash buffer, and direct modeled surplus back into taxable or Roth.

The planner uses the shared progressive tax kernel. The kernel covers filing-status-aware 2026 federal brackets, taxable Social Security benefits, and a Medicare IRMAA surcharge estimate. It also models state brackets when the household supplies a resident state. The IRMAA option defaults to Part B and can include Part D. This is still a planning model, not a full household tax return.

For a plain-language overview of what each simulated year applies, see the Tax-Aware Retirement Simulator page.

The comparison rail supports the eight withdrawal strategies below. Percent-of-portfolio spending is also available as a primary plan rule, but it is not exposed in the comparison picker.

The planner calibrates every comparison strategy so year 0 spending equals the configured base annual spending. Strategy-native dynamics apply from year 1 onward.

Any table entry can also drive the primary plan. The primary spending rule picker exposes nine total rules, including percent of portfolio. Selecting a dynamic rule reveals an inline parameter panel for its configuration. To compare alternatives against a baseline, use the comparison rail below.

The "Compare withdrawal strategies" toggle on the form runs multiple spending rules side by side on the same simulation. Each entry sees the same return sequence per cohort (historical) or per path (Monte Carlo). Only the spending logic differs. Use this view to compare rules such as Guyton-Klinger and VPW for the same plan assumptions.

Comparison is opt-in. Default runs return only the primary strategy and stay byte-identical to single-strategy behavior. Enabling the toggle populates two default entries (current spending plus Guyton-Klinger) and shows an "Add strategy" picker covering the eight comparison strategies listed above. Up to four entries per request.

Year-0 calibration applies across the rail. Every entry starts at your plan's base annual spending in year 1 of display (year 0 internal). Strategy-native dynamics, including Guyton-Klinger cuts and raises, VPW age-banded percentages, the Blanchett smile, and the ABW / TPAW amortization formulas, take over from year 2 onward.

The results surface shows a decision-metrics table. The table includes year-1 spending, median and P10 lifetime spending, cut frequency and size, and success rate. It also includes median and P10 terminal value. The result also shows a spending-paths overlay with a focused-entry P10–P90 band and a real/nominal toggle. It shows an event timeline of where each entry's rules fired, and a terminal wealth distribution.

Tax-aware comparison: when you enable the account breakdown, every entry runs through the same per-account tax-aware loop the primary plan uses. That loop applies the same withdrawal sequencing and Roth conversion policies. RMD-based comparison entries set only the discretionary spending target. Mandatory required minimum distributions still flow through the tax engine without double-counting. Multi-entry tax-aware Monte Carlo caps simulations at 3,000 paths to bound runtime and surfaces the cap as an assumption note in the results.

Planning Comparison lines up saved analyses from the Retirement Planner, Roth Conversion Planner, and Decumulation Studio side by side. It composes analyses you already own instead of running anything new, so save each scenario first. This feature requires Pro. Comparisons stay private because the referenced payloads contain personal tax and balance data.

Income streams (Social Security, pensions, annuities, or custom recurring income) offset portfolio withdrawals during the years they are active. Each stream has a start age, optional end age, and optional cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

Enter a recurring annual amount in real dollars at that stream's start age. A 0% COLA holds purchasing power constant. A nonzero COLA changes real income in later active years.

Enter one-time income in nominal dollars for the target year selected by its year offset. The planner converts that target-year amount to the plan's real-dollar basis before simulation.

Spending adjustments model one-time or recurring changes to baseline spending. Examples are a travel budget from age 65 to 75, or a one-time home repair at age 70. Positive amounts increase spending. Negative amounts reduce it.

• Start with a clean base case. Use your current planned allocation, retirement age, and spending target before trying optimizations.
• Enter material cash flow offsets. A plan without Social Security, pensions, or large recurring expenses is rarely decision-useful.
• Run the historical result first. Then enable Monte Carlo if you want to compare sequence-specific history with a broader distribution of random paths.
• Use the sensitivity analysis to change one lever at a time. This is the fastest way to see whether spending, retirement age, or allocation matters most.
• Save candidate plans and use plan comparison instead of relying on memory. This is especially useful when comparing a spending cut against a later retirement date.

• Verdict: pass (90%+ success), caution (75-90%), or fail (below 75%).
• Success rate: fraction of scenarios where the portfolio lasted the full plan duration. The results show no success rate when no scenario ever needs a portfolio withdrawal (spending is zero or guaranteed income covers it). In that case every scenario would trivially pass. The results lead with the chance of ending below the starting balance instead.
• Annual flow summary: for tax-aware plans, shows median guaranteed income, withdrawals by account type, taxes, conversions, reinvested surplus, and ending balances by year. Median fields use independent calculations, so the tax bucket total can differ from median total tax in aggregated result rows.
• Cash flow and tax decomposition: shows the selected year's income sources, withdrawals, taxes, spending, and surplus. The Engine cash residual node appears only when a reported aggregate row's independently medianed sources and uses do not balance. A separate Tax median reconciliation node appears when independently medianed tax buckets do not sum to median total tax.
• Median terminal value: 50th percentile portfolio balance at plan end.
• Worst-case terminal value: 5th percentile portfolio balance at plan end.
• Spending variability: coefficient of variation of annual spending (shown for dynamic spending rules).
• Failure analysis: table of historical cohorts that failed, showing which start years led to depletion and how many years the portfolio lasted.
• Portfolio fan chart: percentile bands of portfolio value over the plan duration.
• Spending path chart: percentile bands of annual spending over the plan duration.
• Terminal value distribution: histogram of ending portfolio values across all scenarios.
• Failure diagnostics: for weaker plans, the tool estimates a lower spending target and a safer withdrawal rate. It also ranks next-step guidance for the smallest changes that are most likely to help.
• Sensitivity analysis: shows how success rate changes when you sweep spending, retirement age, or stock allocation.
• Comparison helpers: lets you run common plan variants directly from the results view and add them to the comparison table without rebuilding the form.
• Scenario comparison: compares the current result against saved plans so you can see which change improved the plan most.

• Treating a high success rate as a guarantee. The tool is a stress test, not a forecast.
• Comparing plans with missing income or missing expense changes. Those omissions often matter more than small allocation changes.
• Overreacting to one metric. Use success rate, terminal wealth, spending variability, and failure timing together.
• Ignoring the shape of the path. Two plans can have similar success rates but different worst cases and spending volatility.

• Returns are annual real (after-inflation) total returns compiled from standard academic datasets (1926-2024).
• Asset classes beyond US stocks and US bonds use simplified approximations based on the primary series.
• Beginning-of-period withdrawal convention: the planner takes spending at the start of each year, then the portfolio grows by that year's return.
• Monte Carlo draws random years with replacement (bootstrap), which preserves the empirical return distribution but not serial correlation.
• When tax-aware mode is off, taxes, fees, and transaction costs are not modeled. Flat tax-aware mode applies simplified federal rates to traditional and taxable withdrawals. Progressive tax-aware mode uses 2026 federal brackets, taxable Social Security, LTCG, NIIT, AMT, and optional IRMAA estimates with a Part D add-on. It is still not a full household tax return.
• Annual flow rows are median summaries across cohorts or simulation paths. They are useful for interpreting the typical path. Do not read them as one exact household ledger unless the run has a single underlying path.
• The planner calculates each median field independently. The decomposition chart's reported sources and uses can therefore differ in mixed RMD and discretionary years, by up to roughly 10 percent. The reconciliation rows (Engine cash residual and Tax median reconciliation) make that gap explicit instead of forcing the chart to balance silently.
• The result panel makes these assumptions explicit at the top of the output. Read them before you evaluate the charts and tables.