Will your savings last through retirement? Answer a few plain questions — one at a time — about the income you want, when you'd like to retire and what you've saved. The model then projects every year ahead: it funds your target income from a sensible waterfall of accounts, Social Security and savings, net of taxes, Medicare and medical costs — and ends with a clear readiness verdict and what to change if you fall short.
No sign-up, no jargon to start. It takes about two minutes, and you can refine any assumption afterward.
By Nachiappan in collaboration with Claude · A hypothetical, educational model — not financial advice.
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Done this before? Import a saved file to pre-fill every step.
1Income
2Retire age
3About you
4Savings
5Other income
6Social Security
7Assumptions
Step 1 of 7 · The goal
How much yearly income do you want in retirement?
Think in today's dollars — what you'd want to spend each year after federal tax, Medicare and health premiums. Don't overthink it; you can change it anytime.
$
A common rule of thumb is 70–85% of what you spend now.
Step 2 of 7 · Timing
At what age do you want to retire?
The age you stop working and begin drawing from savings. If it's your current age, we check whether you can retire today; if it's later, we work out how much more to save.
Retiring now.
Step 3 of 7 · You & your household
How old are you today?
Your age sets your birth year, RMD start and Social Security timing. Add a spouse's age to switch the whole model to married filing jointly — Social Security, Medicare and taxes all adjust automatically. Leave it blank if you're single.
b. 1966
Currently filing as Single.
Step 4 of 7 · What you've saved
What have you saved so far?
Enter the balances you have today. Pre-tax and Roth are tracked separately (their taxes differ), and your taxable brokerage splits into already-taxed principal and unrealized gains. Leave anything you don't have blank.
$
Withdrawals taxed as ordinary income; RMDs apply from 73.
$
Qualified withdrawals are tax-free; no RMDs.
$
Brokerage / cash basis — spendable with no tax.
$
Realized proportionally on withdrawal, taxed at long-term rates.
$
Pays Medicare premiums tax-free from 65; any leftover is then an ordinary-income account.
Step 5 of 7 · Other income
Any other income in retirement?
Pensions, annuities, rental or part-time income, dividends — anything beyond Social Security and your accounts. Skip this step if you have none. Split out the portion that is qualified dividends or long-term capital gains (taxed at preferential rates).
$
$
The remainder is taxed as ordinary income.
Step 6 of 7 · Social Security
Your earnings, for Social Security
We estimate your benefit from a career earnings record and optimize the claiming age for you (you'll see it in the results). Just enter your current salary and when you started working — or expand the earnings records to type your actual SSA wages for precision.
$
Seeds the earnings record (back-projected by wage growth).
First year of earnings — when your work history begins.
Optional override of the computed PIA (monthly, today's $).
Spouse's earnings & benefit
$
Seeds the spouse's earnings record (back-projected by wage growth).
First year of the spouse's earnings history.
Optional override of the spouse's computed PIA (monthly, today's $). Whoever earned less automatically gets their own benefit plus a spousal top-up toward 50% of the higher earner's PIA once both have filed (deemed-filing rules) — no need to choose.
Estimated earnings record (capped at the Social Security wage base). Edit any year; figures index to wage growth, feed the AIME → PIA benefit formula, and update everything.
Step 7 of 7 · Assumptions & taxes
A few economic assumptions, then your results
Pick a preset for returns, inflation and longevity, set your state tax, and you're done. These are sensible defaults — you can fine-tune anything here or in Advanced on the results page.
Middle-of-the-road: 6% return, 2.5% inflation, average medical-cost trends, and mean life expectancy. Sets returns, inflation, medical trends, out-of-pocket costs and planning age together — you can still fine-tune any field below.
State income tax
Federal brackets, the standard deduction, taxable-Social-Security, long-term capital-gains rates and the Net Investment Income Tax are always modeled. Set your state below; bracket/IRMAA smoothing and Roth conversions are auto-optimized (see the results) and can be overridden under Advanced.
Social Security is treated as exempt in every state shown (only nine states tax it, mostly via income limits). Capital gains are taxed as ordinary income.
%
For a state not listed (e.g. NY, NJ, OH): enter its approximate effective rate. Applied to all income including Social Security.
Market & horizon assumptions
The preset above sets these; adjust if you have a view. Return and volatility describe your portfolio mix; the plan-to age sets how long the money must last.
%
Nominal, blended across accounts.
%
Grows your target, SS COLA & brackets.
%
Career earnings growth above inflation (SSA's Average Wage Index trend, ≈1.1%). Lifts Social Security for future retirees while keeping the benefit in today's dollars. Set 0 to freeze wages in real terms.
Defaults to SSA life-table life expectancy for your age & sex; editable (≈50% live longer — consider 90+ to be safe).
%
Annual swing around the expected return — drives the volatility stress test in the results. ≈9% for a 30/70 portfolio, ≈12% for 60/40, ≈17% for all-stock; the assumption preset sets it to match its return (9% / 12% / 16%). Set 0 to disable.
%
A guardrails rule the stress test assumes: in any year the market falls, you trim spending by up to this much to avoid selling into the downturn — then resume the full target once markets recover. Most retirees flex like this. The headline success rate reflects it; set 0 to require the full target every year.
The projection runs until whoever lives longer. After the first spouse passes (at the earlier plan-to age), the survivor files as single, keeps only the larger Social Security benefit, and has one-person Medicare & out-of-pocket costs.
Change any answer and your results update instantly.
By default the model solves each year's withdrawals to hit your target income. Switch to a plain percentage rule to use a fixed withdrawal rate instead.
Solve withdrawals to deliver the target income above.
%
Year 1 = rate × starting balance, then grown by inflation. The classic “4% rule.”
Social Security claiming ages
By default these are set to the optimal claiming strategy — the ages that maximize the expected household benefit in today's dollars, weighting each future year by the probability of being alive to collect it (a male and a female survival curve from the SSA life table; the higher earner is also weighed for the survivor benefit). This doesn't depend on your plan-to age. Override either age below; click Use optimal to restore.
62–70. FRA is 67; delaying adds ~8%/yr to age 70.
62–70. A spousal benefit can't begin until the other spouse has filed.
%
Above inflation, for valuing future benefits. Default ≈ the 20-yr TIPS real yield (the safe asset given up to delay); a higher rate favors claiming earlier.
Re-applies the optimized claiming ages.
Tax strategy
By default these are set to the tax-optimal combination — the smoothing and Roth-conversion settings that minimize total lifetime taxes (income tax, IRMAA surcharges and the tax your heirs would owe) measured in today's dollars. Override either below; click Use optimal to restore.
When on, pre-tax draws are held under the first IRMAA cliff and the 24% bracket where possible, using already-taxed savings then Roth for the rest. Pre-tax is still drained first, just capped.
In low-income years, convert pre-tax → Roth up to the chosen bracket top. Builds Roth for later (tax-free, no RMDs, doesn't raise IRMAA when drawn). Conversion tax is paid from taxable savings.
Re-applies the tax-minimizing combination.
Health care: premiums & out-of-pocket
Retiring before Medicare (65) means buying ACA coverage; we estimate an unsubsidized premium from your age(s) — early retirees with sizeable assets usually land above the subsidy cliff. From 65, Medicare carries its own premiums (modeled in the Taxes/IRMAA logic) plus real out-of-pocket costs. All of these grow at the medical trend you set, which runs well above general inflation.
$
ACA premium; computed from age & household size, override for your plan. Cannot be paid from an HSA tax-free.
$
Deductibles, copays & coinsurance on a marketplace plan (avg. deductible ~$3,800, OOP max $10,600; KFF 2026). Paid from HSA first.
$
Cost-sharing, dental/vision/hearing & uncovered care beyond Part B/D premiums (KFF: ~$6,460/yr incl. premiums). Paid from HSA first.
Drives Part B/D premiums. Part B has grown ~4.5%/yr over 20 yrs, ~5.8% recently (CMS); Trustees project ~5.5%.
Year-by-year results
The full projection lives in three views — switch between them with the tabs: Accounts over time (balances, withdrawals & chart), the Social Security summary (each benefit, lifetime totals & the claiming-age comparison), and the Income & tax ledger (year-by-year income, tax, Medicare & spendable).
Lifetime figures are summed across the plan. Nominal = future dollars actually received (with COLA); today's $ = the same benefits expressed in today's purchasing power. Edit your earnings records under the Social Security step.
All figures nominal (future dollars). Spendable = total income − federal tax − state tax − Medicare − out-of-pocket medical − pre-65 premiums.
Your results · 3 of 3 · Keep a copy
💾 Save or download your results
Nothing is stored automatically — close or refresh this page and your numbers are gone. Download a copy to keep it, reopen it later, or open it in Excel / Google Sheets.
The file holds every input and all output tables (accounts, Social Security, the tax ledger). Re-import it here — or on the very first step — to restore a saved scenario exactly.
