The Baseline & the Rails
Household
— allocation only; the band doesn't change with headcount.
Investable assets only — the base the rails draw from. Pensions go below, as income.
% → $54k portfolio
Conservative draw on liquid assets in a lean year.
% → $126k portfolio
Most you'll draw from the portfolio in a strong year.
Guaranteed Income — lifts the band
Income that arrives no matter what the market does — pensions, Social Security, an annuity. It funds spending directly, so it's added to the band (not multiplied by the rails). Mark COLA if it's inflation-adjusted — that makes it worth more as capital. Use from age / to age to time a stream — Social Security you delay to 70, a bridge income that stops at 73; leave both blank for now-through-life.
source
amount
from age
to age
Value it as capital at
% →
$0
capitalized (COLA sources use this rate; fixed ones are discounted +2% for inflation drift).
Social Security — when to claim
Claiming early shrinks the check for life; waiting grows it. Anchored to a Full Retirement Age of 67 (born 1960 or later): claim at 62 and you lock in ~70%, wait to 70 and it's ~124%. Enter your benefit at full retirement age, see the trade-off, then send your pick up to the income list.
Your estimated benefit at 67 — the "primary insurance amount" on your Social Security statement (ssa.gov).
Real dollars, and a deliberately simple comparison: cost-of-living raises apply to every claim age alike, so they wash out here. It ignores taxes, investing the early checks, and spousal/survivor rules — and it can't price the longevity insurance a bigger lifelong check buys. Breakeven is just where the running totals cross: live past it and waiting wins; fall short and claiming early does. Not advice.
Where Your Spending Sits
Total spend / yr
$0
Guaranteed income / yr
$0
Portfolio draw / yr
$0
Economic net worth
$0
Structural spend · Family + Daily Life
Family · shared floor$5,000/mo
Shared infrastructure — homes, cars, insurance, and healthcare. Netflix and chill. Food is not here — it lives in each person's Daily Life. Everyone's welcome; just tidy up after yourself.
Daily Life · per person, per month$0/yr
Food, clothing, travel & entertainment, equipment — each partner's own monthly life. Set any amount per partner; they don't have to match.
Project funds · per partner
The top of the guardrails — the flux in life. A per-partner allotment for pet projects and infrastructure maintenance — a porch repair one year, a new bike the next. Some years are fun; others just stop the roof leaking. Save it, spend it, roll it forward — but don't waste it. Up to here, a big-ticket year is reasonably guilt-free. Different partners, different budgets — the total is what counts against the rails.
Person 1 · project fund$10,000
Person 2 · project fund$10,000
Over Time · will it last?
– %
Objective — leave
% of today's portfolio by age
— the finish line; solve-it below finds the spend that hits it.
your plan
draw over the ceiling
return range (low–high)
your objective
All figures in today's dollars (real). The shaded band spans your low–high real return — one point can't capture how much this swings a 30-year plan. This is a point-in-time projection that holds spending flat. In reality it's a yearly conversation: you'd re-run this each year against your actual balance and flex spending to stay inside the rails — spend a little less after a down year, more after a good one — which meaningfully improves the odds vs. this steady-spend view. Deterministic (no year-to-year volatility or sequence effects), and pre-tax: taxes are the biggest thing this tool doesn't model.
How the Money Splits
Notes & Assumptions
Debt sits outside the target
Mortgage and auto payments aren't counted in the target spend. Debt is a strategic use of capital — it keeps cash available for internal use at your IRR, for a cost. Watch your spreads.
Large expenses move the base
A big one-off reduces net worth, which can lower spending allowances in future years. But context matters: money moved into income-generating investments — or that stays truly liquid — can reasonably remain in the liquid-net-worth base. And planning big cash needs strategically over time can lower overall tax cost.