GoalEraPlan for what matters.GoalEraPlan for what matters.Every client you've run through the model, with a link back into their analysis.
A first plan in a few minutes. Enter what you know; everything else gets a sensible default, and you can fill in detail on the client's tabs afterwards.
The basics — enough to set the workflow in motion. Short on time? Use Quick start to get a first plan from a few numbers.
A snapshot of where this client stands, and quick links into each area.
Who this plan is for. Each person's age and ending age set the plan's timeline; the plan runs until the last person reaches their ending age.
What the client has available today to fund every goal below.
What the client owns outside the investment portfolio: the home, other real estate, a business, and life insurance. They count toward net worth (life insurance excepted) and the estate, but don't fund goals or affect the recommended allocation.
Mortgages, loans and other debts. Balances count toward net worth and the estate. Add a monthly payment to see when a loan is paid off and, unless the payments are already part of lifestyle spending, include them in the plan.
Social Security, pensions, paychecks — anything that offsets what the portfolio needs to provide, for as long as it lasts. Leave "end year" blank for income that continues for life.
What the household sets aside each year before retirement, and where it goes: 401(k) deferrals, IRA contributions, employer matches, regular brokerage deposits. Savings are paid from income first, so that income doesn't also offset spending. Enter a dollar amount (grows with inflation) or a percentage of a paycheck.
Money expected once, such as an inheritance or the sale of a home or business. It's added to the taxable accounts in that year (in today's dollars, grown with inflation) and isn't taxed.
Drives the income tax estimate (federal and state) used in Monte Carlo and the Cash Flow, Taxes and Detailed Cash Flow reports, on by default for every client. Withdrawals are sequenced taxable accounts first, then traditional, then Roth last. Traditional withdrawals (including RMDs) are ordinary income, Roth withdrawals are tax-free, and taxable-account withdrawals are taxed only on their gain above cost basis, as long-term capital gains.
Choosing a state fills in a typical rate, whether it taxes Social Security, and its retirement income exclusion. Override any of them to match the client. The rate is applied to federal taxable income, less the Social Security and retirement income the state doesn't tax.
Brokerage and other taxable accounts pay interest and dividends each year, part of their expected return, which are taxed even when nothing is withdrawn. Leave blank to use the defaults from the Assumptions page.
Core lifestyle goals can cover sequential phases (e.g. years 1–10, then 11–30) or run simultaneously (e.g. general spending alongside healthcare costs, which have their own inflation rate: use + Healthcare costs to model coverage before 65, Medicare and IRMAA) — each with its own rolling protected-years window: at every point in time, the next N years of that goal's spending sit in risk-managing assets, no matter how far off they are today. Every other goal is capped at the household horizon and priced off the glidepath.
Who inherits: children, other people and charities, with each one's share of whatever passes under the will. For a couple, the wills are assumed to mirror each other: everything to the surviving spouse first, then to these heirs.
Retirement accounts, life insurance and accounts with a transfer-on-death designation pass straight to the named beneficiary, outside the will. Joint accounts pass to the surviving owner.
| Goal | PV | Assets | Funded |
|---|
| Year | Age | Bottom 5% | Bottom 25% | Median | Top 25% | Top 5% |
|---|
| Year | Age | Core Lifestyle* | Discretionary | Family | Philanthropy | Total |
|---|
Short guides to every part of GoalEra. For how the numbers are calculated, see Methodology.
Shared across every client. Changing these updates the discounting and glidepath math the next time you view a client's results.
Spending comes from risk-managing assets instead of selling return-generating assets while they're depressed, and new money refills the reserve first. Monte Carlo simulates the rule; the Monte Carlo page compares it with ordinary rebalancing.
Not editable — sourced from IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (tax year 2026) and Treasury Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-9 / Pub. 590-B. This is exactly what the app uses internally whenever a client's federal tax estimate is turned on (Tax Profile tab, per client — on by default), including required minimum distributions.
Your contact details and sign-in settings.
Ask for a 6-digit code from an authenticator app each time you sign in, so a stolen password alone can't open your clients' plans.
Questions, problems or ideas: send a request and we'll reply here and by email.
Support tickets and GoalEra's users. Only admins can see this page.
A complete, plain-language account of every formula and mechanism this tool uses — written so a new user can understand exactly how a number on a results page was produced, not just what it means.
GoalEra derives a household's recommended portfolio allocation from its actual goals, rather than from a generic risk-tolerance questionnaire. Every dollar a household holds is, conceptually, earmarked to fund something — a goal with a dollar amount and a date — or it isn't earmarked to anything yet (surplus). The tool prices each of those commitments individually, in present-value terms, and the household's overall recommended mix of return-generating versus risk-managing assets falls directly out of that pricing: money needed soon sits in conservative assets, money needed far off (or not needed at all yet) sits in growth assets. Nothing about the recommended allocation is set by hand — it's a mechanical consequence of the goals, the assumptions, and the money already on hand.
Every goal falls into one of four categories:
Discretionary, Family, and Philanthropy goals are priced against a reference curve that maps years until the goal is needed to a recommended return-generating percentage today. The curve is 0% return-generating at 0–2 years out, rising in steps to 100% return-generating at 15+ years out. A goal 20 years away is treated the same as one 15 years away (100% return-generating) — the curve doesn't extend past 15 years, on the premise that risk capacity doesn't keep increasing indefinitely just because a goal is very distant. Between the defined points the curve is linearly interpolated, so a goal 4.5 years out gets a blended return-generating percentage between the 4-year and 5-year points.
For a standard goal, the household's asset earmarked to it — if a specific dollar figure was entered — or its present value if not, is split into return-generating and risk-managing dollars using that percentage, evaluated at today's distance from the goal.
Core Lifestyle goals use a fundamentally different, more precise mechanism than the standard glidepath: a rolling protected reserve, applied independently to every individual dollar of spending, for every year of the goal.
Each Core Lifestyle goal has a protected-years setting — how many years before a dollar is actually spent that it should already be sitting in risk-managing assets. For a dollar due to be spent in year y, with a protected-years window of p:
This is genuinely rolling, not assigned once at goal creation: a dollar due in year 20 with a 7-year protected window spends its first 13 years in return-generating assets, then rolls into risk-managing assets, then into cash for its final year — re-evaluated continuously as time passes, not locked in on day one. If protected-years is set equal to a goal's full duration, every dollar of that goal is inside its protected window for its entire life, and the goal never benefits from return-generating growth at all — a legitimate, more conservative choice, but a materially different one from a typical rolling window.
Multiple Core Lifestyle goals can run in the same years simultaneously, each with its own protected-years setting and its own inflation rate — see Section 5 for how income is shared across them.
Income sources (Social Security, pensions, paychecks) offset Core Lifestyle spending specifically — they are not netted against Discretionary, Family, or Philanthropy goals, which are always priced gross. When more than one Core Lifestyle goal is active in the same year, income is netted proportionally across all of them by that year's gross spending share, rather than being subtracted from each goal independently (which would let a large goal exhaust the income and unfairly zero out a smaller one). Concretely, for a given year: factor = max(0, totalGrossLifestyleSpending − totalIncome) / totalGrossLifestyleSpending, and each goal's net need for that year is its own gross spending times that same factor.
Every goal's spending amount grows forward from today using an inflation rate — by default the global inflation assumption on the Assumptions page, compounded as amount × (1+inflation)^(year−1) (year 1 uses the amount as entered, with no growth yet applied). Any goal can instead be given its own inflation override, replacing the global rate for that goal only — useful for a goal like healthcare spending that's expected to grow faster than general inflation.
Every goal's year-by-year nominal spending schedule (its "ladder") is discounted back to today using compound growth at the rate appropriate to whichever bucket that dollar sits in for each year of its life, per the rolling floor (Section 4) or the standard glidepath (Section 3). A goal's present value is the sum of all of its ladder entries, each discounted individually — not one blended rate applied to the total. This is why present value, funding ratio, and the recommended allocation are all internally consistent: they're all derived from the same year-by-year ladder.
Advisory fee. The fee on the Assumptions page (a percentage of assets per year, 1% by default) is subtracted from the return-generating, risk-managing and cash returns wherever the portfolio grows or is discounted: goal present values (and so the funding ratio and recommended allocation), the present value of future savings and estimated taxes, Monte Carlo's mean returns (volatility is unchanged), the expected-return projections behind the Cash Flow and Taxes reports, and the minimum-volatility portfolio. The returns entered on the Assumptions page, and in the What-if panel, are before the fee.
The "Projected allocation over time" chart answers a different question than the household summary snapshot: not "what should the whole portfolio look like today," but "how does the allocation of money already earmarked to known goals evolve as those goals get funded and consumed." It's built from every goal's individual ladder entries (each a dated dollar amount with a present value), pooled into one set of tranches. For any vantage year t, the tool sums every tranche not yet due (year > t) into cash / risk-managing / return-generating buckets, using each tranche's own glidepath or rolling-floor position evaluated at that vantage point — not fixed at goal creation. For a Discretionary, Family, or Philanthropy goal with a specific earmarked-asset figure, its tranches are scaled so they total that figure rather than its present value (the same base Section 3 uses), so at year 0 this projection matches the household summary exactly. The chart's x-axis runs exactly to the household's horizon (the latest of the plan horizon or any goal's own end year) — no padding beyond that.
Any investable assets beyond what all of a household's goals need, in present-value terms, are uncommitted surplus — not tied to any specific future date. Surplus is treated as 100% return-generating, the same principle already applied to any dollar not earmarked to a near-term need. This is added as a standing tranche with no due date within the horizon (so it always resolves to 100% return-generating for the projection in Section 8 too) and is shown as its own line, "Uncommitted surplus," in the household summary's category breakdown — never silently folded in without being made visible.
The Household Summary's "Recommended Portfolio Allocation" donut reflects the household's entire investable asset base — every goal's present-value-weighted split, plus uncommitted surplus at 100% return-generating (Section 9). The funding ratio is total investable assets divided by total goal present value. The expected return used in discounting is a blended figure: cash dollars at the cash rate, risk-managing-minus-cash dollars at the risk-managing rate, and return-generating-plus-surplus dollars at the return-generating rate, weighted by today's dollar split.
Only shown when the funding ratio is at least 100%. Using the household's actual nominal year-by-year spending schedule and total assets, the tool solves — by bisection — for the minimum required blended return that still funds every goal, then derives the return-generating/risk-managing split implied by that minimum return: wRG = (requiredReturn − rm) / (rg − rm), clamped to 0–100%. This is compared against the glidepath-recommended split so an advisor can see how much more conservative a fully-funded household could afford to be.
Runs 1,000 independent trials over the household's horizon. Each year, every trial uses the same policy allocation (from Section 8's projection, evaluated at that year) but draws its own random annual return from a normal distribution parameterized by the blended mean and variance of that year's return-generating/risk-managing mix, including their volatility and correlation assumptions. Each trial withdraws that year's need (Section 13's schedule) from its own running balance, and adds back any income in excess of that year's gross Core Lifestyle spending — income only offsets Core Lifestyle goals (Section 5), so anything beyond that is reinvested rather than discarded, the same treatment the withdrawal-sequencing projection gives it (Section 17); a trial "succeeds" if it never runs out of money. The fan chart's percentile columns (5th/25th/50th/75th/95th) are computed independently for each year from the distribution of trial balances that year — not tracked along any single path — which is why the lower percentiles can flatten at zero for many years while the upper ones are still climbing.
Down-market rule. With the rule on (the default), each simulated path holds return-generating and risk-managing assets as separate pools, starting at the recommended mix. Each year they earn their own returns, drawn from the volatility and correlation on file, and a return-generating market index is tracked against its previous high. In a normal year the year's spending (net of income) is paid and the portfolio is rebalanced to the glidepath's mix for the next year. When the index is more than the threshold (15% by default) below its high, the year's spending is paid from risk-managing assets and nothing is rebalanced; new money refills risk-managing assets up to their target, with any excess buying return-generating assets; return-generating assets are sold only if risk-managing assets run out. Once the index is back within the threshold, the next rebalance restores the mix. The Monte Carlo page compares the rule with ordinary yearly rebalancing on the same simulated markets. With the rule off, the simulation uses a single blended return each year, equivalent to rebalancing every year.
These reports show one plan path at expected returns: the same model Monte Carlo simulates (Section 12) — the same glide-path allocation, goal spending, income, required withdrawals and income tax — but with each year's return fixed at its expected value, the blend of the return-generating and risk-managing assumptions at that year's projected allocation, instead of drawn at random. Monte Carlo shows the range of outcomes around this path. Each year the portfolio grows at that expected return, then pays the year's spending not covered by income plus tax, then adds back any income beyond spending, so every row reconciles exactly: start of year + investment growth + net cash flow = end of year. If the portfolio would fall below zero, that year is flagged as a shortfall and the balance is held at zero.
Cash flow shows, per year: ages, portfolio at the start of the year, Social Security, other income, gross goal spending (lifestyle goals before income is applied), taxes (federal plus state), net cash flow (income minus spending minus tax), investment growth and the year-end portfolio. Taxes shows the estimate's working: filing status (single after a spouse passes — Section 18), pensions and other income, pre-tax savings, required withdrawals (RMDs plus inherited IRA withdrawals), other IRA/401(k) withdrawals, interest and dividends, realized capital gains, Social Security and its taxable portion, the standard deduction, taxable income, federal tax, state tax (when a state is set) and the top ordinary bracket reached. Portfolio withdrawals in the tax projection follow the sequencing in Section 17 and assume, for that projection only, the household's current blended expected return held constant. Both reports can be downloaded as CSV.
Detailed cash flow is the same path laid out by source: beginning portfolio value, each income source (with a subtotal), each goal's gross distribution (with a subtotal), income tax if enabled (Section 15), net cash flow (shown in red when negative, meaning that year's spending exceeded income and came from the portfolio), and the ending value. Investment growth isn't shown as its own line there; it's the gap between net cash flow and the change in portfolio value.
Every goal's nominal spending, by year and category. Core Lifestyle figures are net of income (Section 5); Discretionary, Family, and Philanthropy are always shown gross, consistent with how income netting works everywhere else.
On by default for every client (can be turned off per client on the Tax Profile tab). See the Federal Tax Reference on the Assumptions page for the exact bracket tables, standard deductions, capital gains bands and Social Security thresholds in use. For each year the tool works out:
Taxable accounts pay a yearly yield (2% by default, 60% of it qualified dividends; set on the Assumptions page and per client on the Tax Profile tab). The yield is part of the account's expected return, not added to it, and it is taxed each year whether or not anything is withdrawn. Because the withdrawal needed to cover spending depends on the tax it generates, and the tax depends on the withdrawal, the tool solves this with fixed-point iteration each year until it converges (typically in a handful of iterations), computed once per year, not per Monte Carlo trial. Bracket thresholds, capital gains bands and the standard deduction are grown forward using the household's inflation assumption, so a multi-decade projection doesn't drift into artificial bracket creep.
Roth conversions. With a conversion plan (Tax Profile tab), each year in the plan's window an amount moves from each person's own traditional IRAs and 401(k)s, in proportion to what's left after that year's required and other withdrawals, into the same person's Roth, at the start of the year so it grows there. A fixed plan converts a set amount in today's dollars, grown with inflation. A bracket plan converts just enough to bring that year's ordinary taxable income to the top of the chosen federal bracket, solved iteratively because the conversion's tax adds to the year's withdrawals and can make more Social Security taxable. The conversion is ordinary income for federal and state tax, and the tax is paid like any other year's tax: from income left over after spending first, then from accounts in the usual order (taxable, traditional, Roth). The default window runs from the year everyone has retired until the year before the first required distribution. The Roth Conversions page compares strategies on lifetime income taxes (total, and present value at the risk-managing return), required distributions, ending balances in today's dollars, and the after-tax value left to heirs, which counts traditional money at the heirs' tax rate (24% by default) because heirs pay income tax when they withdraw it. Not modeled: Medicare IRMAA surcharges, the five-year rule on converted amounts, and inherited-IRA withdrawal timing for heirs.
Healthcare and Medicare. With healthcare costs added (Goals tab), a core lifestyle goal "Healthcare" carries each year's modeled costs, per person and in today's dollars grown at healthcare inflation: individual coverage once the household has stopped working and before 65, Medicare from 65 (the standard Part B premium, $202.90 a month in 2026, plus the Medigap and Part D amount) and out-of-pocket costs once retired. While either spouse works, coverage is assumed to come through the employer and sit in lifestyle spending. With the tax estimate on, Medicare's income-related surcharges (IRMAA) are added for each person 65 or older from the household's projected AGI two years earlier (years one and two use year one's), using the 2026 tiers with thresholds indexed to general inflation and surcharges grown at healthcare inflation. IRMAA is withdrawn from the portfolio with the year's spending and counted with the estimated taxes in the funding ratio. Not modeled: long-term care, HSAs, ACA premium tax credits, and IRMAA appeals for a drop in income.
Life insurance. For a couple, each life insurance policy on file (Financial Assets › Other assets) that names the spouse, or the estate, as primary beneficiary pays its death benefit into the survivor's portfolio at the start of the year after the insured's last year, as a tax-free, fixed-dollar one-time inflow (new cost basis), provided the policy is still in force: a term policy pays only if the insured dies by its coverage-end age. The Life Insurance page ends one spouse's life at a chosen age (the same change as the What-if "lives to"), so their income and savings stop and the survivor rules for spending, pensions and Social Security apply, then searches for the additional coverage on that person, paid to the survivor, that brings the plan to the chosen target (funding ratio or Monte Carlo success). The search finds the smallest amount, rounded up to $25,000, that meets the target; Monte Carlo uses the same seeded paths for every trial amount. Premiums are not modeled.
Time segments. The Time Segments page is a presentation of the same allocation, not a separate method. Each goal's year-by-year present value (after income for lifestyle goals, and scaled to earmarked assets for other goals, exactly as in the household allocation) is grouped by the year it's due: next year, years 2–5, 6–10, 11–20 and beyond 20, with assets beyond what the goals need shown as "beyond goals". Within each segment, every dollar is invested as the plan invests it today: lifestyle spending in cash for next year, risk-managing within the goal's protected years and return-generating beyond, and other goals at the glidepath's return-generating share for their years to go. The segments therefore sum to the recommended allocation. A segment's expected return is its dollar-weighted cash, risk-managing and return-generating returns after the advisory fee.
Applies to any asset account flagged "Traditional IRA / 401(k)" on the Financials tab. RMDs are calculated separately for each account owner: RMD start age follows SECURE 2.0 §107 by the owner's birth year — 73 for those born 1951–1959, 75 for those born 1960 or later — and each year's RMD equals that owner's traditional balance at the start of the year divided by the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table divisor for the owner's age that year — the age they turn during that calendar year, on the same "year 1 = next year" calendar the plan horizon uses, which also governs when the 65+ additional standard deduction begins (see the Assumptions page for the full table). The traditional balance used for this calculation is projected forward deterministically, at the household's current blended expected return held constant — not simulated with random annual returns the way the portfolio itself is in Monte Carlo. Critically, an RMD is taxed as ordinary income even in a year the household doesn't otherwise need to draw from the portfolio — the mandatory distribution still generates a real tax bill, which the tool still grosses up for, even though it won't force additional spending beyond covering that tax.
Inherited IRAs and inherited Roth IRAs (10-year rule). For most non-spouse beneficiaries of an owner who died in 2020 or later, an inherited account must be completely emptied by the end of the 10th year after the year the original owner died. The account's deadline comes from the "original owner died" year entered on the Financials tab, and its withdrawals follow the method chosen there: spread evenly (each year's balance divided by the years left, so the final year empties it) or all in the final year. Inherited IRA / 401(k) withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income, like an RMD; inherited Roth withdrawals are tax-free. Required withdrawals not needed for spending are reinvested in the taxable bucket. If the account owner passes during the plan, the surviving spouse takes it over as successor beneficiary with the same deadline. When the original owner had already begun RMDs (ticked on the account), the law also requires a minimum withdrawal in each of years 1 to 9: the balance at the start of the year divided by the beneficiary's life expectancy from the IRS Single Life table (Publication 590-B, Table I), set at their age in the year after the death and reduced by one each year after. Each year takes the larger of that minimum and the chosen method; "all in the final year" then means the minimum each year and the rest at the deadline.
Inherited before 2020 (stretch). When the original owner died before 2020, the older rules apply: there's no 10-year deadline, and the beneficiary takes that same life-expectancy minimum every year (for an inherited Roth IRA too, tax-free) until the account is empty. Accounts with a death year before 2020 use these rules unless the 10-year rule is chosen on the account. Simplifications: the beneficiary's own life expectancy is always used (never the original owner's, even when it's longer), and eligible designated beneficiaries who inherited in 2020 or later (for example, minor children or beneficiaries within 10 years of the owner's age) can be modeled with the stretch option, though their exact rules aren't. A surviving spouse who rolls an inherited account into their own IRA should enter it as their own traditional or Roth account.
Once tax is being estimated, income left over after lifestyle spending first pays the year's other goals and tax, and only the rest is withdrawn from accounts, sequenced in a specific order: taxable accounts first, then traditional (tax-deferred), then Roth last — the standard tax-efficient convention, since it lets Roth balances compound tax-free the longest. A required minimum distribution (Section 16) is forced out of the traditional bucket ahead of this order, regardless of how much is available elsewhere, since that's a legal requirement rather than a preference. Roth withdrawals are treated as entirely tax-free. Traditional withdrawals (including RMDs) are ordinary income; a taxable-account withdrawal is taxed only on its share of the gain above cost basis (Section 15). Any account left uncategorized on the Financials tab defaults to the taxable bucket, a deliberately conservative choice so an uncategorized account can never accidentally receive Roth-like tax-free treatment.
A client is a household of one person or two. Each person has their own current age (or date of birth) and an ending age — the age the plan assumes they live to. The plan runs until the last person reaches their ending age; for a couple, the other person is assumed to pass at the end of the year they reach theirs. These are fixed planning assumptions, not probabilities: Monte Carlo varies market returns only.
Every asset account and income source has an owner — one person, or "Joint" for a couple. Traditional and Roth retirement accounts can only belong to one person. Ownership drives what happens after the first death:
Spending goals are not reduced automatically after the first death; to model lower survivor spending, end a core lifestyle phase at that year and start a new one with the lower amount.
Each person can have a retirement age (Household tab). They work, earn and save in every plan year before the year they reach it; leaving it blank means they're not working. Income marked "ends at retirement" stops after the owner's last working year, so changing the retirement age moves it automatically.
Savings are entered on the Income tab, each pointing at the account it goes into (any account except an inherited one), plus, for 401(k)-type accounts (traditional or Roth), an employer contribution. Each amount is either a dollar figure in today's dollars, grown with inflation each year, or a percentage of one income source, which follows that income as it grows and stops when it ends. Several savings can go into the same account. By default savings run while the account's owner is working (for a joint account, while either person is) and stop at retirement or death; a start and end year can be set instead, in which case they run between those years while the owner is alive. They're paid out of the household's income first: income set aside as savings doesn't offset lifestyle spending, and any savings beyond that year's income are treated as a transfer from the taxable accounts. Employer contributions are new money. Savings into a traditional account are pre-tax and reduce taxable income; Roth and taxable savings come from after-tax income. Each year's savings arrive in their accounts after that year's investment return, the same timing Monte Carlo uses for other inflows. Employer contributions are added to the same account as the employee's savings. Contribution amounts aren't capped at IRS limits; an amount above the 2026 401(k) or IRA limit for the owner's age shows a warning instead.
Funding ratio. Planned future savings are a resource that funds goals, so the funding ratio is (investable assets + present value of planned future savings) ÷ (present value of goals + present value of estimated income taxes), with the figure from investable assets alone shown beneath it. Estimated income taxes are, for each year, the federal and state tax from the tax projection (Section 15) less any income left over after lifestyle spending, which pays tax first, so a working household's tax on its salary mostly drops out and what remains is chiefly tax on portfolio withdrawals, required distributions and retirement income. They are discounted along the glidepath like a non-lifestyle goal, shown as their own line in the goal funding table, and also count as a cash need for the minimum required return. They don't change the recommended allocation. With the tax estimate turned off, no taxes are included. Future savings (employee plus employer) are discounted at the risk-managing return, treating them as a steady, bond-like stream. They also count as money coming in for the minimum required return (Section 11), Monte Carlo, and the cash flow reports. The recommended allocation (Section 9) covers today's investable assets only.
One-time inflows. An expected inheritance or the sale of a home or business (Income tab) is entered in today's dollars and grown with inflation to its year. It's added to the taxable accounts as new cost basis, untaxed, and counts toward the funding ratio like future savings, at its present value.
How income changes over time. Each income source is entered in today's dollars and, by default, rises with the inflation assumption. A source can instead be fixed (the same dollar amount every year, as with most private pensions and annuities, so its real value falls) or grow at its own rate (for example a salary with real raises). Social Security always rises with inflation, standing in for cost-of-living adjustments. Savings set as a percentage of pay follow their salary's growth.
Loan payments. A liability with a monthly payment is paid off over the number of months its balance, interest rate and payment imply. Unless the payments are marked as already included in lifestyle spending, they're added to the plan as a core lifestyle goal: twelve times the monthly payment each year until payoff, fixed in dollars (no inflation) and fully protected in risk-managing assets, since it's a known obligation. Income offsets it like other lifestyle spending. The What-if spending lever doesn't change it. Balances aren't amortized for net worth or the estate, which use today's balance.
Current versus recommended allocation. When accounts have an investment mix (stocks, bonds and cash percentages), the household's current allocation is the balance-weighted mix of those accounts. Stocks are compared with the recommended return-generating share, and bonds plus cash with the risk-managing share. The suggested move is the difference in percentage points applied to the accounts with a mix; accounts without one are left out.
What-if scenarios. The What-if panel on the results pages changes a copy of the plan, never the client's record: retirement and ending ages, lifestyle spending, savings, one-time expenses (added as goals) and windfalls, and market assumptions. Every results page and the comparison strip are recalculated from that copy, and Monte Carlo uses the same simulated market paths for the base plan and the what-if, so the difference between them reflects the change rather than random variation. A longer or shorter life moves the end of the plan, and goals that ran to the old end run to the new one. Scenarios can be saved with the client or written into the plan.
Stress tests. A What-if stress test applies one market shock. "Stocks fall now" lowers each account by the chosen percentage of its stock share (its stocks/bonds/cash mix, or the recommended return-generating share when no mix is entered), so every figure starts from the lower balances. "Stocks fall 30% in the first year of retirement" fixes the return-generating return at −30% in the first year nobody in the household works, in every Monte Carlo path and in the expected-return projections behind the Cash Flow reports; risk-managing assets keep their usual return and volatility that year. "Returns 3 points lower for 10 years" lowers the return-generating mean by 3 points for plan years 1–10. Present values, the recommended allocation and the tax projection's account growth keep the Assumptions page's returns. Monte Carlo keeps its fixed seed, so the comparison with the base plan isolates the shock.
Survivor options (couples). A pension or other income owned by one person can continue to the survivor at 50%, 66%, 75% or 100% after that person passes, as with a joint-and-survivor pension; by default it stops. Each core lifestyle goal can set the share of its spending the survivor still needs after the first death (blank = 100%).
Social Security claiming. A Social Security benefit can be entered as an annual amount and start year, or as the monthly benefit at full retirement age (from the client's SSA statement) and a claiming age from 62 to 70. With the second, the benefit follows SSA's rules: full retirement age by birth year (66 to 67); claiming early cuts the benefit 5/9% a month for the first 36 months and 5/12% a month beyond; each month of waiting past full retirement age adds 2/3% (8% a year) up to 70. A married person whose own benefit is under half their spouse's also receives the difference as a spousal benefit once both have claimed, reduced 25/36% a month (5/12% beyond 36 months) if claimed early, with no increase for waiting. After the first death the survivor keeps the larger of their own benefit and the deceased's, which counts at least 82.5% of the deceased's full benefit if they claimed early, or their benefit at death if they hadn't yet claimed. Benefits are in today's dollars, rising with inflation in place of cost-of-living adjustments, and start in the first full year at the claiming age. Not modeled: the earnings test for claiming while working before full retirement age, survivor benefits claimed before the survivor's own full retirement age, and divorced-spouse benefits. The Social Security results page compares every claiming age, the breakeven ages, a couple's combined strategies, and each strategy's effect on the funding ratio and Monte Carlo success; present values there discount at the risk-managing return net of inflation.
Estate planning. The Estate page follows each death in turn. At a death, joint property passes to the surviving owner by title, with half included in the decedent's estate; accounts and life insurance with a beneficiary designation pass to the primary beneficiary (or the contingent one if the primary has died); everything else passes under the will after settlement costs (a percentage of that probate estate). A couple's wills are assumed to mirror each other: everything to the surviving spouse, then to the named heirs in their shares. With a bypass (credit shelter) trust, the first will instead puts up to the unused federal exemption into a trust, funded only from assets passing under the will, that goes to the heirs at the second death outside the survivor's estate. Federal estate tax is 40% of the taxable estate (gross estate less the marital deduction for married couples, the charitable deduction and settlement costs) above the 2026 exemption of $15 million per person, plus any exemption ported from the first spouse when portability is elected. State estate tax uses the client's state: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Illinois and Maryland from the former federal state death tax credit table, New York from its own table (including its 105% cliff), and other states by an approximation rising from their lowest to their highest rate above the exemption; there's no state portability. Inheritance taxes (Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania) use simplified rates by the heir's relationship. Estate taxes are paid from what passes under the will to heirs and the trust first, then from the spouse's share; each heir pays their own inheritance tax. "At life expectancy" places each death in the year that person reaches their ending age, with investment accounts at the plan's projected value in today's dollars; other assets and debts stay at today's values. Not modeled: lifetime gifts, other trusts (such as irrevocable life insurance trusts), state-specific deductions, the generation-skipping transfer tax, step-up in basis and income tax on inherited retirement accounts, and the interaction between taxes paid from the spouse's share and the marital deduction.
These are deliberate, disclosed simplifications — not oversights — but worth stating plainly in one place: