Navigator
▸ Details
Defaults: Baseline forecast and 70/30 portfolio. Pick what fits your situation before exploring.
Portfolio CAGR: -- Vol: --
Inputs
Results
Strategy
Reference

Navigator

A retirement planner for the questions retirement actually raises:

  • How much should I convert to Roth, and when?
  • What happens to my spouse if I die at 78?
  • How robust is my portfolio against a Lost Decade, or Vanguard's reversion-to-the-mean forecast?
  • Should I take Medicare Part B in addition to FEHB?
  • What's the impact of buying a vacation property, gifting, or a large purchase?
  • Is my spending plan OK?
  • What levers can I adjust to raise my chance of success above 95%?

Navigator answers these by simulating your full retirement year-by-year under the tax code — finding strategies that maximize net wealth, beneficiary wealth, or pre-tax outcome — then validating with a 1,000-path Monte Carlo.

Executive Summary

The core retirement decisions — and the rules of thumb behind them.

Educational rules of thumb to frame your thinking — not personalized financial or tax advice. Navigator computes your specific numbers in the tabs that follow.

1When to start Social Security?
  • Single — start SS at 62.
  • Married
    • higher-earner at 70, lower-earner at 62, or
    • both at 70 (if both are expected to live long; this is the best hedge against poor long-term stock-market performance).
2FEHB and Medicare Part B, or just FEHB?
  • Generally it's a good idea to take both (about 70% of federal employees elect Part B at 65).
  • Can be too expensive for federal employees in high Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) brackets. At higher MAGI there is an additional monthly surcharge — IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount). MAGI also rises in RMD years. Compare your total annual Medicare Part B cost against your total FEHB cost (including the Max Out-of-Pocket) to guide the decision.
3Roth Conversions?
  • This comes down to paying taxes at the lowest tax brackets.
  • If you were born in 1960 or later, RMDs start at 75; otherwise they start at 73.
  • RMDs are driven by your total tax-deferred balances, which are influenced by:
    • stock allocation and stock-market performance,
    • Congress (future tax law),
    • tax brackets — when one spouse dies, the survivor moves into the individual tax brackets (the “widow's trap”), and the tax burden rises.
  • Strategy — make assumptions, project your future tax brackets, and do Roth conversions before RMDs begin.
4Spending
Rule of thumb — the 4% rule
  • Withdraw 4% of the financial portfolio in year one, then increase that dollar amount each year for inflation.
  • ~90%+ chance the portfolio survives 30 years.
  • ~65% chance the portfolio doubles over 30 years.
  • Assumes a portfolio between 50/50 and 80/20 (stock/bond).
5Stock Market Performance
  • Historically, the stock market gains about 12% per year.
  • Vanguard expects reversion-to-the-mean over the next few years (~6–8%).
  • Lost Decades — ~10-year periods where the market gain is close to zero (the last began in the early 2000s).
6Sequence-of-Return Risk
  • Withdrawing during a down market early in retirement is a major risk to the portfolio.
  • Strategies:
    • Lower the spending rate.
    • Spend from the non-stock allocation. This gradually raises the stock percentage — effectively “buying low” — though it can start to feel like timing the market. This is a bucket strategy.
    • Recognize this is the risk of starting retirement with an aggressive portfolio, so you might begin more moderate. A 60/40 portfolio is a common starting point — but those with pensions and high-value portfolios can often handle more risk and a more aggressive mix. A personal decision with potentially significant consequences (recall the 2008 housing crash).

How Navigator works

Five steps from your inputs to a final plan.

1
📝
Inputs
Your financials, spending, real estate, healthcare, and settings — market forecast, portfolio mix, plus your SS & Roth choices.
2
🧭
Analyze
Navigator finds the optimal Roth conversion strategy and Social Security claim ages, runs Monte Carlo, and builds your year-by-year projection. Analyze with your current settings, or Navigator’s recommendation.
3
🔍
Results
  • · Roth Optimizer
  • · Monte Carlo (chance of success)
  • · Year-by-year projection
  • · Healthcare & IRMAA
4
📊
Dashboard
Your headline results: the objective, key decision points, the optimized solution, and widow’s-trap protection.
5
⚖️
Strategy
Explore lever decisions to grow wealth or chance of success: portfolio sweep, heat map, stress test, and a final consolidated plan.

Try an example household

Load a pre-built household at one of four US net-worth percentiles (couple, both age 62, retiring now). Navigator runs the Roth Optimizer + Monte Carlo immediately and switches to the Overview tab.

Median (50th %ile)
Tight retirement, every decision matters. Small conversions in the 12% bracket may help.
Comfortable (75th %ile)
Solid nest egg. RMD bracket creep ahead — bracket-fill conversions during the gap likely pay off.
Affluent (90th %ile)
RMD tax torpedo real. Aggressive Roth conversions can save mid-six-figures over the plan.
High net worth (95th %ile)
Estate and beneficiary wealth dominate. Higher-bracket conversions still pay due to widow trap + RMD.

Use the left side panel to get started

Pick a tab from the sidebar — start with Financial inputs, or try one of the demo households below. Most users finish in 15-20 minutes.

What Navigator answers

Click a question to jump to the tab that answers it.

Should I convert Traditional → Roth? How much, when?
Compares fixed-amount, bracket-fill, and zero-conversion strategies. → Roth Conversion Optimizer
How likely is my plan to succeed under market uncertainty?
1,000-path Monte Carlo gives a success probability + wealth distribution. → Monte Carlo
What stock/bond allocation gives me the best tradeoff?
Sweeps 11 allocations to plot the efficient frontier. → Portfolio Sweep
What individual decisions move the needle most?
Ranks ~25 levers by impact on success and wealth. → Single-Lever Ranking
How do two decisions interact?
2D heat map across a grid of choices. → Heat Map
What's my final recommended plan?
Pick top levers, build a consolidated plan. → Final Plan

Key concepts

Common terms used throughout Navigator. Click to expand.

9 retirement-planning terms (click to expand)
Roth conversion — moving money from Traditional IRA/401(k) to Roth, paying ordinary income tax now in exchange for tax-free growth and tax-free withdrawals later. The bet: pay tax at today's rate to avoid a higher rate later.
RMD (Required Minimum Distribution) — IRS-mandated withdrawals from Traditional IRA/401(k) starting at age 73 (75 for those born 1960+). Forces taxable income whether you need it or not — the "tax torpedo" that motivates pre-RMD Roth conversions.
Bracket fill — converting just enough each year to fill up a specific tax bracket (e.g., the 22% or 24% bracket), avoiding the next higher bracket. A common Roth-conversion strategy.
IRMAA — Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount. Medicare Part B and D premiums increase at five income tiers above ~$103K (single) / ~$206K (MFJ). Roth conversions can push you into higher tiers two years later.
Widow trap (survivor penalty) — when one spouse dies, the survivor's filing status changes from MFJ to Single. Standard deduction halves, brackets halve, IRMAA threshold halves — same income, dramatically higher tax. Pre-death Roth conversions help mitigate.
Step-up in basis — when an asset is inherited, its tax basis resets to fair market value at death. Pre-death gains are wiped out. In community-property states like Texas, this applies to 100% of jointly-owned assets on the first spouse's death.
§121 exclusion — primary residence sale exclusion: $250K (single) / $500K (MFJ) of capital gains tax-free, if owned + occupied 2 of last 5 years.
§280A mixed-use rule — vacation home rental income is typically offset by allocable expenses. For most retirees with mixed-use vacation homes, rental income is effectively tax-free.
Conversion gap — the years between retirement and RMD age (typically 62-73) where you have low ordinary income and can convert Traditional to Roth at low tax rates. The single biggest Roth opportunity for most retirees.
Navigator · Personal retirement planning tool · For methodology details, see the How It Works tab.

Spending

Spending
$
%
%
Excludes federal tax & health insurance — engine adds those automatically. Pension COLA = annual cost-of-living adjustment applied to pension benefits (default 2%; CSRS ≈ 3%, FERS ≈ 2%, private pension typically 0%).

Gifts, Purchases & Recurring Payments

Annual Gifting
$
Recurring outflow from Taxable each year (today's $; inflates 3%/yr). For example, $19K × 3 children = $57,000/yr to use the IRS annual exclusion. Under the annual exclusion no gift tax applies and no Form 709 is needed.
One-time Purchases
Lump-sum events (car, wedding, gift) in today's $. Engine inflates 3%/yr to trigger year. Trigger by calendar year (e.g. 2030) or Spouse 1's age (e.g. 75). If both set, year wins.
Recurring Payments
Annual outflows that recur between two S1 ages (e.g. alimony, club dues, charitable pledge). Amount is today's $; engine inflates 3%/yr through the active years.

1. Plan Basics

Plan Setup
Beneficiaries

2. Spouse 1 — Spouse 1

Identity & Timeline
Note: Retire age, SS claim, and death age are annual resolution — the engine treats retirement as starting January 1 of the calendar year the spouse reaches that age. No sub-year (mid-year) timing.
Income & Pension
$
$
%
$
SS PIA = 12 × monthly PIA at FRA (67).
Retirement Accounts
$
$
$
$
Contributions are during working years only.
HSA (Health Savings Account)
$
$
📋 How HSAs are modeled (tax + spending treatment)

Triple-tax-advantaged bucket. Contributions are pre-tax (reduce ordinary income that year, same as Traditional). Growth is tax-free. Withdrawals for qualified medical expenses are tax-free.

Contributions stop at Medicare age. Once you're enrolled in Medicare (default age 65), HSA contributions are no longer allowed by the IRS. The engine zeroes future contributions automatically from that age on. Existing balance keeps growing tax-free.

Spending treatment. Each year, the household's combined HSA balance pays for that year's medical costs FIRST (Medicare B + plan premium + OOP), up to the available HSA balance. The remainder is funded from the normal waterfall (Taxable → Traditional → Roth). The Medicare B / Plan premium / OOP columns in the Yr-to-Yr table show GROSS costs; the HSA column shows the balance after each year's medical draw.

At first death (MFJ). Surviving spouse inherits the HSA tax-free (federal spousal rollover). The combined household balance continues to pay for medical.

At end of plan (both deceased). For "Net to Spouse," the surviving spouse's HSA is counted at full value (assumes continued medical use). For "Net to Beneficiaries," the HSA is treated like Traditional — non-spousal beneficiaries pay ordinary income tax on the full balance.

Simplifications. Doesn't model: pre-65 non-medical withdrawal penalty (20%), "save receipts and reimburse decades later" strategy, HDHP eligibility validation, separation of Medigap (non-qualified) from Part B/D (qualified) premiums.

3. Spouse 2 — Spouse 2

Identity & Timeline
Note: Retire age, SS claim, and death age are annual resolution — the engine treats retirement as starting January 1 of the calendar year the spouse reaches that age. No sub-year (mid-year) timing.
Income & Pension
$
$
%
$
Retirement Accounts
$
$
$
$
HSA (Health Savings Account)
$
$
Tax/spending treatment: see the expandable note on Spouse 1's HSA card.

4. Total Taxable Account

Taxable Account
$
$
$
$
Annual contribution: working years only. Reserve floor: min cash buffer engine won't draw below unless Trad/Roth depleted.

5. Cash Flow Events

Windfalls
Lump-sum cash in (inheritance, settlement, bonus). Today's $; inflates 3%/yr to trigger year. Trigger by calendar year or Spouse 1's age. Adds to Taxable as after-tax money (no LTCG drag on the windfall itself).
Term Life Insurance
Add as many policies as you have (laddered terms, group term, individual). Each pays the face amount tax-free if the insured dies during the coverage period. If insured outlives coverage, premiums are sunk. Face amount and premium are nominal $ (level term — not inflation-indexed).

Real Estate

Add properties below. Each is modeled with its carrying costs, mortgage (if any), and tax treatment at sale or step-up at death.
📋 Tax-treatment reference (click to expand)
Property types:
  • Primary residence — $500K MFJ / $250K Single capital-gains exclusion at sale (§121)
  • Vacation home — full LTCG at sale, no exclusion
  • Other — land, inheritance, etc. (same tax as vacation home)
Sale age: set to 0 for "never sell during plan" (held to death — gets full step-up in basis, beneficiaries inherit tax-free).

Healthcare Coverage

Determines health insurance cost in retirement. Medicare uses base premium + IRMAA tiers based on income. FEHB / Other use the custom premium + OOP fields below. To compare these options visually, see the Healthcare Results tab.
Plan
Medicare uses IRMAA tiers automatically. ~70% of FEHB retirees enroll in Part B as secondary.

▶ Settings — please review below & make selections

▸ 🎯 Set your scenario assumptions — what Navigate does (click to expand)

These key decisions drive your analysis — they mirror the Inputs pages, so changes here propagate everywhere. Adjust, then Analyze (here or from the sidebar).

Primary Objective
All three are always computed in the Roth Optimizer; this only sets which one the recommendation targets.
Optimization Horizon
End of plan scores at S2’s death (default — favors Roth conversions, which avoid years of widow-bracket tax). S1 death scores at the widow transition (favors what the survivor inherits; no-conversion baselines often lead here). Single households fall back to end-of-plan.
Household
Market Assumptions
Conversion Strategy
Healthcare & IRMAA
Spouse 1 — Retirement & SS Decisions
Spouse 2 — Retirement & SS Decisions
Run an analysis (the buttons above or below) to see your initial recommendations here.

Roth Conversion Optimizer

Three optimal Roth conversion strategies are shown below, each maximizing a different objective: Max Net to Spouse @ end of plan, Max Gross to Spouse @ end of plan (pre-tax — useful for seeing how much the conversion strategy gives up to taxes), and Max Net to Beneficiaries. Two no-conversion baselines (SS at 62/62 and at 70/70) are also shown for comparison. Each strategy assumes you keep your current Real Estate, Social Security, portfolio, and spending settings — only the Roth conversion strategy varies.
Click Calculate to run.

Distribution of Outcomes (Fan Chart)

Distribution of outcomes:(Click Recalc to populate)
|
MC sampling method:Switching modes will automatically re-run MC if results exist.
Note: Both "Total portfolio" and "Net assets" reflect financial accounts only (Trad + Roth + Taxable). Real estate held to end of plan is not included in these lines. Real estate that is sold during the plan flows into the Taxable account from the sale year forward and IS included from that point on.
Sampling method:Normal — Normal(mean, vol) per year, independent across years, fixed 3% inflation.
Bootstrap mode samples random 5-year blocks from actual 1928-2024 history — preserving fat tails (1929/1931/2008-style crashes), sequence-of-returns clustering, and inflation regimes (1970s-style 8% vs 1990s-style 2%). Toggle above to switch; results may differ noticeably for marginal plans.
📋 Forecast modes — what they mean and why these numbers (click to expand)

Navigator supports four forecast frames you can toggle in the Assumptions bar at the top of the page (most pessimistic to most optimistic):

Lost Decade: Years 1-10 use stocks -2% / 17% vol (sequence-of-returns stress test calibrated to actual U.S. lost decades). Years 11+ revert to Baseline 11.5%. Captures the realistic threat to retirees: bad early decade, then normal recovery — but with less capital.
Vanguard 10yr: Years 1-10 use stocks 5.5% / 17% vol (Vanguard VCMM Q1 2026 midpoint of 4.5-6.5%). Years 11+ revert to Baseline 11.5%. Applies institutional 10-year forecast for the horizon Vanguard actually forecasts, then historical for the longer period.
Baseline (default): stocks 11.5% / 17% vol, bonds 4.5% / 7% vol, S/B corr 0.10. Stock CAGR ~10.06% nominal — matches historical.
Historical: stocks 11.79% / 19.4% vol, bonds 4.79% / 7.9% vol, S/B corr 0.017 — pure Damodaran 1928-2024.

Why Baseline = 11.5% nominal arithmetic mean for stocks?

The defensible long-horizon number for U.S. equities, grounded in 96 years of data:

  • S&P 500 long-run geometric mean (CAGR): 9.8-10.2% nominal (1928-2024, dividends reinvested) — Damodaran NYU Stern
  • S&P 500 long-run arithmetic mean: 11.7-12.0% nominal (same source)
  • Inflation 1928-2024 average: ~3.0%
  • Real CAGR: ~6.9-7% (nominal CAGR minus inflation)

30-year rolling window data — most relevant for retirement planning:Four Pillar Freedom analysis

  • Worst 30-year period (1965-1994): 4.3% real (~7.3% nominal) — stagflation era
  • Median 30-year period: 7.1% real (~10.1% nominal)
  • Best 30-year period (1932-1961): 10.1% real (~13.1% nominal) — post-Depression boom
  • The S&P 500 has NEVER had a negative 30-year period since 1928

How Baseline 11.5% nominal arithmetic translates:

  • 11.5% arithmetic − (17% vol)²/2 = ~10.06% nominal CAGR
  • ~7% real CAGR (after 3% inflation)
  • This matches the historical 9.8-10.2% nominal CAGR — Baseline is calibrated to "next 33 years average out to historical experience"
  • Vol of 17% is slightly below the long-run 19.4% to reflect modern post-1980 stability; using historical vol gives CAGR ~9.65% (still within historical range)
  • Above the worst-30-year-period CAGR of 7.3% nominal — meaning even in the most adverse 30-year window in 96 years, real returns were positive in real terms
  • If you believe today's elevated valuations (S&P P/E ~28× vs ~17× long-run average) warrant a haircut, dial down stock weight or accept a more conservative figure manually

Why not just use the institutional 10-year forecasts?

Vanguard, BlackRock, Morningstar etc. forecast 3.3-5.5% nominal for U.S. equities over the next 10 years. These are 10-year forecasts, not 33-year. Saying "Vanguard predicts 4.5% for 33 years" misrepresents what they actually publish. Over a longer horizon, mean-reversion has more time to work; the long-run productivity-driven floor of equity returns reasserts. Vanguard VCMM

Why Lost Decade as the stress test instead of Conservative?

"Conservative" (extrapolating 10-year forecasts for 33 years) was misrepresenting what institutions actually predict. The realistic failure mode for a retiree isn't "average returns are 4.5% forever" — that has never happened in U.S. history over 30 years. The realistic failure mode is sequence-of-returns risk: a bad first decade depletes capital that the recovery can't fully replace.

  • 1929-1939: S&P CAGR ≈ -1% nominal
  • 1965-1974: S&P CAGR ≈ +1% nominal (real -3% with high inflation)
  • 2000-2009: S&P CAGR ≈ -1% nominal — rolling-returns analysis

Lost Decade mode (-2% nominal mean for years 1-10, then 10% from year 11) is calibrated to be slightly worse than the worst rolling 10-year actuals, then recover. This stress-tests whether the plan survives the realistic worst-case sequence.

How to use the modes:

  1. Plan against Baseline. Your central planning assumption.
  2. Stress-test with Lost Decade. If your plan still works under a 2000-2009-style early decade, you have meaningful resilience.
  3. Sanity-check with Historical. If history repeats, you'll likely have substantially more wealth than Baseline projects.

⚠️ Scheduled review: revisit annually. The 9.8-10.2% historical CAGR is anchored in 96 years of data, but valuations and current conditions warrant calibration. Watch CAPE ratio (currently ~33), 10-year Treasury yield (currently ~4.3%), and rolling-30-year actuals as they update.

Five percentile lines: 95th (teal, upper tail), 75th (blue), median (black, thicker), 25th (orange), 5th (red, lower tail). "Total portfolio" = combined Trad + Roth + Taxable balances. "Net assets" = portfolio minus estimated tax on Trad (per-year effective rate) and LTCG on taxable gains (proper bracket math). Same method as the MC table's "Net Assets to Spouse" — values match.

Monte Carlo — Distribution of Outcomes

Each scenario runs 1000 paths with year-by-year returns sampled from Normal(mean, volatility) for the chosen stock/bond allocation. P10 / P50 / P90 show the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentile of ending net assets and beneficiary net across the 1000 paths.
Takes ~10 seconds. Results are stochastic — re-run for slightly different numbers.
⚠️ Longevity is NOT modeled in MC. All paths assume you and your spouse live exactly to the death ages you entered. Returns and (under bootstrap) inflation vary across paths, but lifespans do not. This means the "Chance of success" metric does not capture longevity risk. If you live longer than expected, your plan needs more years of coverage. If a spouse dies early, the survivor faces the widow trap (single-filer brackets, halved IRMAA thresholds). To stress-test these scenarios, manually adjust the death ages on the inputs tab and Recalc — or wait for the planned Survivor Risk tab to do this automatically.
Click Run Monte Carlo to compute distribution.

Healthcare Cost Comparison

Compare lifetime healthcare costs across plan choices (Medicare, FEHB, FEHB+B, etc.). Costs are in today's dollars and account for: Medicare Part B (with IRMAA tiers based on income), Part D, Medigap supplemental insurance, and the custom premium / OOP / inflation values from the Healthcare Inputs tab.
The currently-selected plan from the Healthcare Inputs tab is shown in bold.
Considering a future purchase? Add it here, then fill in the form on Real Estate inputs:
💡 Why does adding a vacation home have such a big retirement-wealth impact?

A vacation home looks on paper like swapping one asset (cash or portfolio) for another (real estate). But over a 25–30 year retirement, three compounding financial drags accumulate. The Roth conversion optimizer, Monte Carlo, and Net to Spouse / Beneficiaries figures all reflect these — which is why “sell” or “never bought” scenarios can be $1M–$3M ahead of “hold forever” in present-value dollars.

  1. Carrying costs eat 2–4% of home value every year, forever.
    Property tax + insurance + maintenance + repairs typically run 2–4% of home value annually. For a $900K vacation home, that's $18K–$36K/yr leaving the portfolio. Over 25 years with 3% inflation, the present-value cost is roughly 18–22× the annual figure — about $400K–$800K just to hold the asset.
    PV(carrying) ≈ annual cost × ((1 + g)N − 1) / g,  g = real escalation rate
  2. Equity locked in real estate compounds at ∼0% real.
    Real estate appreciates roughly with inflation (∼3% nominal, ∼0% real). A 70/30 stock/bond portfolio compounds at ∼6% real. The opportunity cost of locking equity in the home is the differential compounding:
    opportunity cost ≈ equity × ((1.06)N − (1 + real RE growth)N)
    Example: $400K of locked equity over 25 years. Portfolio FV = $400K × (1.06)25 = $1,716K. RE equity FV (real, at 0% real growth) = $400K. Wealth gap = $1,316K. This is usually the largest drag.
  3. Selling triggers capital gains tax.
    Federal LTCG at 15% (sometimes 20% at high income) applies to the appreciation since purchase. A $900K vacation home with $525K basis, sold after 25 years of 3% nominal growth, sells for ∼$1,884K nominal → $1,359K of nominal gain → ∼$204K in federal LTCG. (If held until death, basis steps up and this disappears — but the carrying + opportunity costs already happened.)

Worked example — a $900K vacation home with $400K equity, held 25 years, then sold:
• Carrying drag (PV): ∼$600K
• Opportunity cost on equity: ∼$1,300K
• LTCG at sale: ∼$200K
• Total impact: ∼$2.1M vs. holding the same capital in a 70/30 portfolio.

The trade-off this analysis doesn't capture: the consumption value of actually using the home — vacations you'd otherwise pay for, time with family, the option to host visitors. If you'd otherwise spend $30K/yr on vacation rentals, that's ~$750K of avoided expense over 25 years, which offsets some of the financial drag above. The net financial impact is the drag minus avoided consumption — and the decision is whether the remaining net cost is worth the consumption value to you.

For your specific properties with actual sale ages, growth rates, and mortgage terms, see the “Why is the impact so large?” details inside the RE Sell Decision Analysis card below — it computes carrying / opportunity / LTCG with your numbers.

Real Estate Sell Decision Analysis

Compares the financial impact of holding non-primary properties vs. selling at various ages vs. never having bought. Each scenario runs the full optimizer to find the best Roth conversion strategy given that real estate plan, then reports net assets and beneficiary net at end of plan (today's $).
Takes ~15–25 seconds per non-primary property + ~6 seconds for combination scenarios. Other RE inputs in the Joint card drive this analysis — adjust them, click Recalc, then re-run this card.
Click "Run Analysis" to compute. (This card is hidden when no non-primary real estate is configured.)

Mortgage Early Payoff Analysis

For each property with a mortgage, tests payoff at every other age from 62 to 90 plus "no early payoff" baseline. Each scenario runs the full optimizer to find the best Roth conversion strategy given that payoff plan. Reports net assets and net to beneficiaries at end of plan (today's $).
Takes ~12 seconds per property. For typical retiree scenarios with low-rate fixed mortgages and equity-heavy portfolios, holding the mortgage usually beats paying it off — pulling Trad to fund the payoff triggers immediate ordinary income tax, while the Trad balance left in place keeps compounding tax-deferred. Paying off can win for high-rate mortgages (6%+), fixed-income-heavy portfolios, or when funded from after-tax cash. Click ⭐ Run Analysis to see the optimal answer for your specific rates, balances, and tax situation.
Click "Run Analysis" to compute. (This card only shows results for properties with active mortgages.)

Year-by-Year Projection

Calculate first.
Healthcare columns:Medicare B = Part B premium + IRMAA surcharge (only when Medicare B is elected); Plan premium = FEHB/Other plan premium (when not on Medicare-only); Health OOP = out-of-pocket costs on the custom plan. Empty cells (—) mean that component doesn't apply to your current health configuration.
FEHB + Part B coordination: when Part B is elected with FEHB/Other and all covered spouses are 65+, OOP is set to $0 — most major FEHB plans (BCBS Standard, GEHA Standard, etc.) waive cost-sharing when Medicare is primary. If your specific plan doesn't fully coordinate, manually set OOP to a partial value.
Exports the scenario shown above in nominal dollars, with live formulas for Total spending, Total draw, Total assets, and a lifetime-totals row.

Charts (for selected scenario above)

Calculate first.

Scenarios used

⭐ Net to Spouse / Beneficiaries — Observations

Based on your inputs, the optimizer found two strategies — one optimized for your wealth at end of plan, one for what your beneficiaries receive. When the same strategy wins both, that's a strong recommendation. When they diverge, the differences highlight a meaningful trade-off.
Updates automatically when you click Recalc.
Click Recalc to populate observations.

🎯 Levers to Improve Chance of Success

Tests real-world adjustments — spending cuts, portfolio mix changes, real estate sales, mortgage payoff, working longer — and ranks each by how much it would raise your Monte Carlo chance of success. Useful when your current chance is below your comfort threshold, or just to see which levers carry the most weight in your plan.
Takes ~60–120 seconds (runs ~12 scenarios with full optimizer + 1000 MC paths each). Levers are filtered to those applicable to your situation. Each row shows the new success rate, the change in pp, and the wealth cost so you can see the trade-off.
Display:
Click "Run Analysis" to compute. The target rate determines which levers get highlighted as "meets target" in the table.

🌡️ Heat Map — Chance of Success vs. Two Levers

Pick two levers and see how their combinations affect your Monte Carlo chance of success. Each cell shows the success rate for one (X, Y) combination. The grid reveals the frontier — for each value of one lever, the smallest change in the other that meets your target.

What each cell shows. Every cell runs 1,000 Monte Carlo market simulations. Success is the share of those paths in which the portfolio lasts through the end of the plan — the last surviving spouse’s assumed death age (set by the dies at controls below) — without running out. The large dollar figure is Net to Spouse: the after-tax wealth remaining at that end-of-plan point, in today’s dollars, valued as the surviving spouse would hold it (tax-deferred balances still owe income tax on withdrawal). B is Net to Beneficiaries — what beneficiaries receive after the second death, once the step-up in cost basis resets capital gains.
v3.142: grid expanded to up to 10×10 = 100 cells (~3 minutes). Cells fill in progressively as they compute. Switch between Absolute coloring (fixed thresholds: <80% / 80–94% / ≥95%) and Relative (best/middle/worst within this grid) using the toggle below.
Color:
finds the best stock/bond mix under the Forecast above (~30–60s)
The grid computes automatically when you open this page. After changing any control, click "Click to update heat map" to refresh.
📋 What does the Heat Map assume? (click to expand)

For each cell of the grid, the engine:

  1. Clones your baseline household.
  2. Applies the X-axis lever value and the Y-axis lever value.
  3. Runs the Roth optimizer (~350 candidate strategies: 10 fixed amounts × 5 start ages × 5 end ages = 250 fixed scenarios, plus 4 bracket-fill targets × 5 starts × 5 ends = 100 bracket-fill scenarios).
  4. Picks the strategy with Max Net Assets to Spouse @ end of plan (the same winner shown as the headline scenario elsewhere).
  5. Runs a 1000-path Monte Carlo under that strategy to compute the cell's success rate.
  6. Runs one deterministic projection to compute Net to Spouse and Net to Beneficiaries (today's $, RE-aware) shown beneath the success rate.

What's optimized per cell:

  • Roth conversion amount, start age, end age, or bracket-fill target (unless Roth is one of the axes — then it's pinned to the cell's value)

What's fixed per cell (taken from your inputs):

  • Spouse 1 / Spouse 2 SS claim ages (from the Spouse cards — the heat map optimizer does NOT search over SS unless SS is an axis)
  • Spending mode, withdrawal rate, healthcare assumptions, beneficiaries, gifting, one-time purchases
  • All your real estate (carrying costs, sale ages, mortgage balances/rates/payoffs) — unless overridden by an axis lever
  • Portfolio forecast mode (unless Forecast is an axis — then it's varied per cell)

Conversion-tax sourcing: always waterfall (tax comes from Taxable → Trad gross-up → Roth, in that order).

Why this matters:

  • Each cell shows the best achievable success rate and wealth under that combination of inputs — assuming you'll also adjust your Roth strategy optimally. This is realistic for planning since you control the Roth choice.
  • The chosen Roth strategy can differ between cells. The heat map doesn't show which Roth strategy each cell picked — only the resulting metrics. To see the impact of a specific Roth strategy, set Roth as one of the axes.
  • Heat-map results are not directly comparable to the Single-Lever Ranking tab, which only varies the lever in question and uses your existing default Roth strategy.

📊 Portfolio Allocation — Efficient Frontier

Sweeps the stock/bond mix from 0/100 (all bonds) to 100/0 (all stocks) in 10% increments. For each of the 11 allocations, runs the full optimizer to find the best Roth strategy under that mix, then a 1000-path Monte Carlo to measure chance of success and Net to Spouse @ end of plan (today's $).
Takes ~30–60 seconds. Each point on the curve shows the trade-off between safety (right) and growth (up). Your current allocation is highlighted.
set the Forecast pin, run the sweep, then apply the best mix
Click "Run Allocation Sweep" to compute the curve.
Forecast
Forecast used for this sweep only. Auto-syncs with global until you change it; after that, it's independent. Global Forecast Mode is unchanged.
Portfolio mix
Highlights this allocation on the chart. Auto-syncs with global Stock/Bond until you change it. Global Stock/Bond setting is unchanged.

🧪 Stress Test — Robust Plan Across the Uncontrollables

Finds the strategy that holds up best across the things you can't control — the market regime and each spouse's date of death. It commits to one plan (portfolio mix, SS claim ages, Roth conversion policy) and scores that single plan across every scenario. Unlike the rest of the tool, conversions are not re-optimized per scenario — this answers “will my actual plan survive?”, not “what's best with hindsight?”

1. Scenarios to stress

Market regimes (return environments):
Longevity cases (each spouse's death age, relative to your current inputs):
Run to populate.
Within each regime, the 1,000-path Monte Carlo already captures market luck; these regimes vary the environment, and the longevity cases vary how long each of you lives — the two big things outside your control.

2. Search the committed plans

Sweeps the full mix (11) × SS combos (floor-earner 62/64/66/68/70 × other 62/67/70) × conversion policy (none / 12% / 22% / 24% / 32%) — roughly 825 committed plans against the scenarios above.
Heads-up: hundreds–thousands of simulations — a couple of minutes, with progress below.

⚖️ Wealth vs Risk — Trade-off Analysis

Tests ~25 individual levers AND combinations, then surfaces them through six different lenses. Each scenario captures both chance of success (1000 MC paths) and wealth (Net to Spouse / Net to Beneficiaries in today's $).
Takes ~3–5 minutes. Once computed, switch lenses instantly without re-running. The six lenses each answer a different question — see lens descriptions below.
Click "Run Analysis" to compute. Each lens answers a different question — descriptions appear below the results once computed.

💀 Survivor Risk — Widow's Trap Analysis

When one spouse dies, the survivor faces three simultaneous shocks: filing status changes from MFJ to Single (brackets and standard deduction halve), the IRMAA threshold halves (Medicare premiums can leap two tiers), and one Social Security check disappears. The earlier the first death, the worse the survivor's compounded outcome.

This tab sweeps the first-to-die spouse's death age across 5 scenarios and shows two things for each: how much wealth the trap destroys (relative to both spouses living to plan end), and how much better the outcome could be if you'd planned for early death from the start (optimizer recommends more aggressive Roth conversions when given an early death age).
(the other spouse is assumed to live to the plan-end age in your inputs)
Death ages to test (max 8):
Runs automatically when you open this tab (~2-3 min: current plan + SS-only sweep + full optimizer + MC). Click Run to re-compute after changes.

🎯 Withdrawal Rate Test

Tests portfolio survival under a fixed withdrawal-rate rule (4%, 6%, 8%, 10% — classic Trinity/Bengen stress tests) and validates that the main engine reproduces the textbook result. This page contains three tools, each more rigorous than the last:
  1. Standalone withdrawal-rate test — textbook portfolio-only MC, no engine logic. Pick a rate, see if the portfolio survives.
  2. Engine validation — runs the main engine on a synthetic single-filer 4% household. Should match (1) within sampling noise.
  3. Engine validation ladder — runs the engine on 5 progressively complex households (taxes, draw order, SS, pension) and grades each. Final verdict: does the engine work?

What this isn't. A retirement plan. These tools are validation, not forecast. The standalone test ignores SS / pensions / taxes / etc.; a real plan typically does better (guaranteed income reduces portfolio reliance) or worse (taxes eat draws). For your actual plan's success rate, see Monte Carlo.
One-click full validation
Sets paths to 10,000 and runs all three tests in sequence at your chosen withdrawal rate. Takes ~30–60 seconds for the ladder.
Setup
$
Withdrawal Rule
Fixed real: withdraw the initial rate × starting portfolio in year 1, then inflate that dollar amount by the inflation rate annually thereafter. The classic Bengen rule. Portfolio CAN run out — "failure" = balance hits zero before the horizon ends.
Click Run withdrawal rate test to compute. Default inputs (60/40, 30 years, 4.0%) should produce ~92–95% success — if so, the MC machinery is calibrated correctly.

🧪 Test the Engine with a Single Scenario

Validates the main engine against the standalone test above. Builds a synthetic single-filer Roth-only household (no form changes): age 65 onwards, spending_mode=four_percent_rule, no other income. Roth-only neutralizes taxes so withdrawal == spending. Uses the same starting portfolio, withdrawal rate, and horizon as the standalone test above, plus your current global Forecast + Portfolio mix. Engine result within ±3 pp of standalone = calibrated correctly.

🪜 Engine Validation Ladder

Runs the full engine MC on 5 progressively-complex synthetic households — all using the chosen withdrawal rate. Each step adds one engine subsystem (taxes, draw order, SS, pension). The delta from the previous step tells you what that subsystem costs or earns in MC success rate. Uses the starting portfolio, withdrawal rate, and horizon from the standalone test above, plus the current global Forecast + Portfolio mix.

Stress-testing: change the standalone test\'s Initial rate (%) to e.g. 8%, re-run it (sets a new anchor), then re-run the ladder. The engine should agree with the standalone at any rate — that\'s a stronger calibration test than 4% alone.

📋 Dashboard

Synthesizes everything you've entered + analyzed into one page: your inputs at a glance, your chosen objective, the key decision points you control, and the engine's recommended optimal strategy for your objective.

🎯 My Plan — One Plan Per Objective

Generates two recommended plans by trying levers in the order below, stopping at the first combination that reaches the ≥90% target. Reorder them with the arrows to set your own preference — Roth is always first, portfolio stays manual:
    For each objective (Net to Spouse, Net to Beneficiaries) the search finds the smallest combination of levers (preferring earlier ones) that reaches the ≥90% success target — then uses the chosen wealth metric (Net to Spouse or Net to Beneficiaries) only to break ties among plans that all clear 90%. Two plans total: one per objective (Net to Spouse, Net to Beneficiaries) at ≥90% chance of success.
    Takes ~5–10 minutes (1000 MC paths × dozens of scenarios per target). Results cache so re-runs are fast if you tweak nothing.
    □ Survivor spending: a surviving spouse typically needs about 75–80% of the couple's combined spending to keep the same lifestyle — roughly a 20–25% reduction, not half. The “reduce spending after the first death” lever models this and defaults to 80% (a 20% cut) when you turn it on.
    Click "Compute My Plan" to generate your plan.

    🧭 Decision Compass — Where to Focus

    Maps the major retirement decisions to impact for your situation. Runs a quick MC sweep (~30-60 seconds, 500 paths) across ~12 representative levers covering nine factor categories, then ranks them by combined wealth + safety impact. Pairs each result with rules of thumb from retirement-planning research.
    Less detailed than Wealth vs Risk (which tests 25+ levers and combinations); designed as a starting point to figure out which analyses to dive into.
    Click Run Compass Sweep to compute impact rankings for your specific situation.

    The Decision Compass will show:
    • Your top 3 most-impactful decisions, ranked by wealth + safety impact
    • A breakdown across all nine factor categories with current settings + ranges
    • Rules of thumb from retirement planning research (Bengen 4% rule, IRMAA cliffs, etc.)
    • Decisions you may not have considered yet (gifting, bequest goals, LTC insurance)

    📖 How It Works — Methodology Reference

    Deterministic vs. Stochastic Analyses

    Navigator runs two engines under the hood. Deterministic projects a single path year-by-year using the configured average return (the volatility-drag-adjusted CAGR). Stochastic (Monte Carlo) runs 1000 paths sampling annual returns from a distribution, capturing the range of possible outcomes.

    Each analysis uses one or both, depending on what question it answers.

    📐 Pure Deterministic — single path, fast, reproducible

    Used when the question is "given my plan, what does the year-by-year projection look like?" Same inputs always produce the same output.

    AnalysisWhereWhy deterministic
    Roth Conversion Optimizer 6-scenario comparisonRoth Conversion Optimizer tab (top of page)Picks "best" scenarios on a single representative path
    Year-by-Year projectionYear-by-Year tabSingle row-by-row breakdown — must be one specific path
    Slider live updatesSlider cardReal-time response to bracket-fill / SS / age changes
    SS optimum checkSS optimum hintSearches across SS claim ages on deterministic path
    Healthcare Plan ComparisonHealthcare Results tabCompares 3 plans on deterministic path (informative, not predictive)
    Audit balance checkYear-by-Year audit columnReconciliation — needs single deterministic flow

    🎲 Pure Stochastic — Monte Carlo only

    Used when the question is "given uncertainty, what's the range of outcomes?" 1000 paths × multiple scenarios.

    AnalysisWhereWhat it shows
    Monte Carlo summary tableAfter Recalc, MC cardSuccess rate + P10 / P50 / Mean / P90 for each scenario
    MC fan chartAfter Recalc, fan chartNet assets percentile bands over time

    ⚖️ Hybrid — Deterministic for ranking, Stochastic for safety

    Used when the question is "which plan should I choose?" Each candidate gets both a wealth metric (deterministic) and a success rate (stochastic), so you can compare wealth-at-target-safety trade-offs.

    AnalysisDeterministic partStochastic part
    Real Estate Sell AnalysisPer-scenario optimizer + lifetime metricsSuccess rate per scenario
    Mortgage Payoff AnalysisPer-scenario lifetime cost + interest savedSuccess rate per scenario
    Plan Safety LeversEach lever's wealth metricsEach lever's success rate
    Heat Map2D grid of lever combos — wealth metric per cellSuccess rate per cell
    Portfolio Allocation (📊)11 allocations × optimizer wealthSuccess rate per allocation
    Wealth vs RiskAll ~25 levers' wealth valuesAll levers' success rates
    Final PlanPlan composition + wealth liftPlan's success rate (the threshold criterion)

    When to Use Which Number

    • Wealth / dollar projections — use deterministic. The optimizer "Net to Spouse" numbers, the lever "wealth lift," the bracket-fill percentage are all single-path projections.
    • "Is this plan safe?" decisions — use stochastic. Success rate, percentile bands, the "Net to Spouse, ≥95%" threshold in Final Plan all come from MC.
    • Real-time tweaks (slider, age changes) — deterministic only. MC is too slow for sub-second feedback.

    Why Deterministic and MC Don't Match Exactly

    You'll see the deterministic "Net financial @ end (excl. RE)" sit roughly 1% above the MC P50 (median) at 70/30, growing to ~3-4% at 100/0. Two reasons:

    1. Sampling noise — 1000 paths is finite. Standard error of P50 is ~1-2% of the median value. Re-running MC will give slightly different results each time.
    2. Sequence-of-returns risk (the more interesting one) — when there are withdrawals, paths with bad early returns shrink the portfolio before it can recover, and forced withdrawals consume a larger fraction of the depleted balance, locking in losses. The good-early-return case doesn't generate a symmetric gain. The deterministic CAGR projection compounds at mean − σ²/2 (geometric mean), but withdrawals make the realized geometric mean even lower than that. The asymmetry is real, not a bug, and it's one of the more important findings in retirement-planning research (Bengen et al.).

    This applies roughly equally to all candidate strategies, so the optimizer's ranking is preserved — but absolute dollar projections are slightly optimistic.

    Forecast Modes

    The "Forecast" toggle (above the Recalc button) changes the deterministic growth rate AND the mean of the MC distribution. Both engines respect the same setting.

    ModeStock μWhen to use
    Baseline11.5% all yearsLong-run S&P historical assumption — default planning view
    Lost Decade−2% × 10 yrs → 11.5%Stress test: what if returns are flat or negative for the first decade of retirement?
    Vanguard 10yr5.5% × 10 yrs → 11.5%Vanguard VCMM Q1 2026 midpoint forecast — moderate near-term suppression
    Historical (Damodaran)11.79% all yearsNYU Stern long-run including dividends — slightly more optimistic than Baseline

    Key Engine Assumptions

    • NIIT (3.8% Net Investment Income Tax) — modeled on the deterministic side; respects MFJ ($250K) / Single ($200K) thresholds.
    • State income tax — not modeled (Texas has none; if you live elsewhere, treat the projections as pre-state-tax).
    • Step-up in basis at death — Texas community property: 100% step-up on first death. Other states: 50%. Toggleable in inputs.
    • RMDs — current SECURE 2.0 ages (75 for those born 1960+; older ages for older births).
    • SS benefits — taxed under current rules (up to 85% taxable above the second threshold). Note: SS taxation rules were modified by the 2025 OBBBA "no tax on SS" provision; this engine still uses the pre-OBBBA formula.
    • IRMAA thresholds — start at 2026 cliff levels and inflate each year at the general inflation rate (3%), along with the per-tier surcharge amounts and the Medicare Part B base premium. Each cliff $1 above triggers the next bracket.
    • Real estate — appreciates at user-specified rate (default 3% nominal). Held until specified sale age, then proceeds (net of $500K MFJ exclusion for primary home, full LTCG for other property) flow into Taxable.
    • Inflation — single rate applied uniformly (default 2.5% nominal). Brackets, standard deduction, SS PIA all inflate at this rate.
    • Healthcare cost inflation — separate rate (default 6% nominal) applied to plan premiums and OOP.

    Roth Conversion Strategy

    Conversions are optimized on the deterministic path — the optimizer doesn't directly factor in volatility when picking conversion amounts. This is fine because the relative ranking of strategies is preserved across stochastic paths. But it means the optimizer's "best" strategy is best-on-average, not best-in-the-worst-case. For worst-case considerations, look at MC P10 (the 10th percentile, bad market sequence).

    Two conversion modes:

    • Bracket fill — each year, convert just enough to fill up to a specified marginal bracket top (e.g., 24% bracket → ~$394K MAGI for MFJ). Dynamically adjusts to actual fixed income that year.
    • Fixed amount — convert a specified dollar amount per spouse per year, regardless of bracket position.

    This page is a living reference — additional sections will be added as new analyses are introduced. If a tab or analysis isn't documented here yet, check the footnotes on its output.
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