Sample plan
A good income, and it still doesn't work. Here's what actually changes it.
Most sample plans show you someone who succeeds. This one starts with a household that doesn't — because that is the more common situation, and because what a planning tool does when the answer is "not yet" is the part worth seeing.
The household
- Age
- 40, planning to age 90
- Household income
- $250,000
- Invested today
- $80,000
- Saving
- $10,000 a year — about 3% of income — until 65
- College
- $25,000 a year for 4 years, starting at 47
- Retirement spending
- $150,000 a year from 65
- Social Security
- $63,000 a year from 67
- Allocation
- Balanced
What the projection says
The portfolio peaks around $700,082 at retirement and is exhausted four years later. Across the simulations, the plan holds to age 90 in 0.1% of them.
Nothing here is unusual. A high income and a 3% savings rate is an ordinary combination, and the gap only becomes visible when you put the whole life on one timeline.
The part that's actually useful
A verdict on its own is not worth much. The question is which change moves it — and the honest answer is that the obvious single fixes barely do.
| Change | Plan holds to 90 | Money runs out |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing — as it stands | 0.1% | age 69 |
| Save $30,000 a year instead of $10,000 | 13.3% | age 80 |
| Spend $100,000 a year in retirement instead of $150,000 | 2.6% | age 74 |
| Both together | 79.4% | doesn't |
Saving three times as much buys eleven more years and still fails. Cutting retirement spending by a third barely registers on its own. Together they fund 44 years and the plan holds.
That interaction is the thing a spreadsheet rarely shows and a rule of thumb never does. It is also why the product does not lead with a single number — the number moves for reasons, and the reasons are what you can act on.
What this illustration does not do
It does not model taxes on withdrawals, an inheritance, insurance or annuity products, or a change in the allocation over time. It assumes a fixed inflation rate and a single retirement date. Those are real limitations, and the product says so in the plan itself rather than in a footnote.
Free while in beta. No card required.
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