Retirement Planner Help

Use the planner as a structured way to test assumptions, compare tradeoffs, and prepare better questions.

The workspace is organized around a shared Scenario. From a professional planning perspective, the Scenario editor is the assumption file for the rest of the page: household ages, earnings, savings behavior, account balances, Social Security timing, pension or annuity income, retirement dates, tax settings, and risk inputs flow into the Budget, Savings, Income, and Monte Carlo modules.

This help page is educational. It is not individualized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice. A qualified professional can help evaluate which assumptions are appropriate for a specific household.

Start With The Scenario Editor

Before reading the projections, review whether the Scenario reflects the household you intend to model. Small changes in the Scenario can compound into large differences across the other modules.

Ages and retirement timing: birth dates, partial retirement ages, full retirement ages, and planning horizon determine when work income changes, when withdrawals may begin, and how long assets must support spending.
Earnings and pre-retirement work: salary, salary growth, and partial-retirement work assumptions affect savings capacity before retirement and can reduce the number of years funded entirely from assets. A planned pre-retirement job can be modeled as a tactic to test, not as a recommendation.
Savings rates and contributions: contribution percentages, employer match, annual increases, IRA, Roth IRA, SEP, HSA, and taxable contributions are major drivers of positive outcomes because they affect both the amount saved and the time those dollars have to compound.
Current balances and investment return assumptions: account balances and expected returns set the starting point and growth assumptions used by the Savings, Income, and Monte Carlo views.
Social Security timing: Social Security ages and benefit tables affect projected income, taxable income, and the amount that must come from savings. The planner lets you compare timing assumptions without implying that one claiming age is best for everyone.
Tax, medical, and reserve assumptions: tax tables, Medicare-related assumptions, HSA treatment, and reserve preferences affect income needs and withdrawal pressure.

Budget Module

Use Budget to describe spending needs by age. It helps separate lifestyle assumptions from asset and income assumptions.

Scenario data that matters

Inflation affects how current-dollar spending converts into future-dollar needs.
Retirement ages and planning years determine which budget years matter most in the projection.
Income and savings assumptions do not replace the budget; they show whether the modeled resources can support it.

What to edit to affect outcomes

In the Scenario editor, adjust inflation and retirement timing to see how long and how heavily the Budget module draws on future resources. In Budget itself, review whether essential and discretionary expenses are reasonable for the ages being modeled.

Savings Module

Use Savings to review how contributions, balances, and assumed returns grow before and through retirement.

Scenario data that matters

Current balances set the starting point for each account type.
Contribution rates, employer match, annual contribution increases, and supplemental account contributions shape the accumulation path.
Salary and salary growth affect percentage-based contributions.
Investment return assumptions affect compounding, especially for dollars saved earlier.

What to edit to affect outcomes

In the Scenario editor, savings rates are one of the largest levers to test. Try changing contribution percentages, annual contribution increases, employer match assumptions, and account-specific contributions to see how the accumulation path changes. Review return assumptions separately from savings behavior so optimistic return expectations do not hide weak contribution patterns.

A common financial planning benchmark is to target a retirement savings rate in the 15% to 20% range, including employee contributions and employer match when applicable. The right target depends on age, current assets, pension income, expected retirement date, and spending needs, so use the planner to test the sensitivity rather than treating any benchmark as a guarantee.

Consider modeling gradual annual savings-rate increases in the Scenario editor. Raising the contribution rate when pay rises can help direct part of future income toward long-term goals before lifestyle creep absorbs the entire raise.

Income Module

Use Income to see how retirement spending is funded by Social Security, pensions, annuities, HSA use, taxable income, Roth assets, pretax retirement assets, and other modeled sources.

Scenario data that matters

Retirement and death-age assumptions affect the number of years income must be generated.
Social Security claiming ages and benefit values affect income timing, taxability, and withdrawal needs.
Pension, annuity, rental, and planned work income assumptions can reduce or reshape asset withdrawals.
Reserve, tax, HSA, Medicare, and withdrawal settings affect how much must be drawn from each account type.

What to edit to affect outcomes

In the Scenario editor, compare Social Security age assumptions, pension or annuity start ages, planned pre-retirement or part-time work income, and income ceiling or reserve settings. A pre-retirement job can be modeled as a cash-flow bridge; the question to evaluate is whether the assumption is realistic, sustainable, and consistent with the household's risk tolerance and lifestyle goals.

Monte Carlo Module

Use Monte Carlo to stress-test the plan against many possible market-return paths. It is not a prediction; it is a way to see how sensitive the plan may be to sequence of returns and investment volatility.

Scenario data that matters

Account balances, savings behavior, retirement ages, and spending needs define the plan being tested.
Asset allocation assumptions influence the range of simulated outcomes.
Social Security, pension, annuity, and planned work assumptions can change how exposed the plan is to market withdrawals.
Reserve settings affect how much cushion the model attempts to preserve.

What to edit to affect outcomes

In the Scenario editor, test the plan's sensitivity to savings rates, retirement timing, work income, Social Security timing, spending pressure, and allocation assumptions. A more favorable simulation result should be read as a planning signal to investigate, not as a guarantee.

Social Security Planning

Social Security is modeled in the Scenario editor because the claiming age and benefit assumptions affect Income, Monte Carlo, taxes, and the amount that must be withdrawn from savings. The planner does not replace an official Social Security estimate, but it can help compare how different claiming assumptions change the retirement cash-flow picture.

How benefits are earned and calculated

Credits: Social Security retirement eligibility generally requires 40 credits. Workers can earn up to four credits per year through covered wages or self-employment income.
Years of earnings: Social Security uses up to the worker's top 35 years of annual indexed earnings to calculate the benefit. Working longer can replace lower-earning years in that 35-year calculation, although the impact may be modest if the new earnings do not materially improve the worker's highest years. Working fewer than 35 years is likely to have a significant impact because zero-earning or low-earning years can be included in the average.
Full retirement age: Full retirement age depends on year of birth. Claiming before full retirement age reduces the monthly benefit; delaying after full retirement age can increase the monthly benefit until delayed credits stop at age 70.
Cost-of-living adjustments: Once benefits are being paid, annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustments may help benefits respond to inflation, but they do not remove all planning risk.

How age choices affect the planner

In the Scenario editor, change each person's Social Security start age and benefit estimate to test timing. A younger claiming age can increase early-retirement income but usually lowers the monthly benefit. A later claiming age can increase the monthly benefit, but it may require more savings, work income, pension income, or reduced spending to bridge the years before payments begin.

Married couples, spousal benefits, and survivor risk

Spousal benefits: A spouse may be eligible for a benefit based on the other spouse's record, commonly up to 50% of the worker's full-retirement-age benefit, subject to Social Security rules and filing ages.
Coordinated timing: Couples often review both benefit records together because one person's claiming decision can affect household income, tax exposure, and survivor income.
Survivor benefits: When one spouse dies, the surviving spouse may qualify for survivor benefits based on the deceased spouse's work record. Planning should test whether the surviving household can still support essential expenses if one Social Security payment stops and the larger survivor benefit remains.

From a planning perspective, use the Scenario editor to compare both individual and household outcomes: earlier versus later claiming, the effect of a spouse's benefit, and the durability of the plan if either person dies earlier than expected. These are coordination questions, not one-size-fits-all recommendations.

Inflation, Today's Dollars, And Future Dollars

Inflation is the gradual increase in prices over time. When prices rise, the same dollar amount buys less. Retirement planning has to track both what spending feels like in today's terms and what the future cash flow may need to be when bills are actually paid.

Today's dollars

Today's dollars express future amounts in current purchasing power. If a retirement budget says a household wants $80,000 per year in today's dollars, that means a lifestyle roughly comparable to $80,000 of current spending, even though the future checkbook amount may be much higher.

Future dollars

Future dollars are the actual nominal dollars expected in a future year after inflation. At 3% annual inflation, a $100 expense today would need about $243 in 30 years to buy a similar basket of goods and services. Put another way, $100 received 30 years from now would feel like about $41 in today's purchasing power if inflation averaged 3%.

Example	Today's Dollars	Future Dollars
Retirement spending goal	$80,000 describes the lifestyle in current purchasing power.	At 3% inflation, the same lifestyle would require about $194,000 in 30 years.
Everyday price example	A $100 dinner, grocery trip, or tank of gas today is easy to understand in current prices.	At 3% inflation, that same purchase would cost about $181 in 20 years and about $243 in 30 years.
Planner interpretation	Use today's dollars when comparing lifestyle, comfort, and affordability.	Use future dollars when planning actual account withdrawals, income payments, and tax-year cash flow.

Historical examples such as gasoline, bread, milk, or a dinner out can make inflation feel concrete, but individual items do not all rise at the same rate. Energy, food, housing, medical costs, and services can each follow different paths. Over a 30-year retirement horizon, the important planning point is that a fixed dollar amount can lose substantial purchasing power even when annual inflation looks modest.

The planner may show some values in today's dollars and others in future dollars depending on the question. Today's-dollar views are useful for comparing living standards. Future-dollar views are useful for year-by-year withdrawals, income, taxes, and account balances. When reviewing results, first check which dollar basis the module is using, then compare scenarios on the same basis.

How To Use The Workspace

Change one major assumption at a time when learning which inputs drive the result.
Separate controllable behavior, such as savings rate and retirement spending, from assumptions that are uncertain, such as market returns and tax rules.
Use multiple scenarios for meaningful alternatives, such as earlier retirement, later retirement, part-time bridge work, different Social Security ages, or higher savings rates.
Review whether improvements come from realistic household choices or from assumptions that may be too optimistic.
Revisit the Scenario after major life, income, spending, tax, health, or market changes.

The strongest use of the planner is not finding a single perfect answer. It is learning which assumptions matter most, which outcomes are fragile, and which questions deserve deeper review with a fiduciary planner, tax professional, or other qualified adviser.