Answers, guides, and a real person

Help center

Start with a quick answer, browse the guides to every page and concept of the planner, or write to the team. Everything here is free to read, with or without an account.

01

Quick answers

The short fixes the Help chip carries, in full: what to do, in order, and the guide that says more.

4 quick answers, each with its full guide

  • Start your first plan

    Turn today's household finances into an editable forecast.

    1. Start with the household survey or guided walkthrough.
    2. Enter today's income, spending, property and account balances. Replace any example figures with your own.
    3. Review the projection and its household, inflation and investment assumptions before exploring changes.
    Read the full guide

  • Understand your forecast

    Choose a chart, inspect a year and check how money is displayed.

    1. Choose a chart from the menu above the forecast.
    2. Click a year to pin it and read its breakdown in the details panel.
    3. Turn on Today's money to see amounts adjusted for inflation. This changes the display, not your plan's assumptions.
    Read the full guide

  • Save changes and What-If edits

    Know which edits save automatically and which need you to keep them.

    1. Owned plans save automatically. Check the header for Saved; if a save fails, keep the page open and use Retry when offered.
    2. What-If edits are temporary. Choose Keep or Save as new to keep them, or Revert to return to the starting plan. Share with these changes sends them as a link without saving them to the plan.
    3. Your finances has a separate Save your finances button. Use it to save changes to the household's shared starting figures.
    Read the full guide

  • Get help signing in

    Use the right sign-in method or request a fresh password-reset link.

    1. Use the sign-in method attached to your account, such as email and password or Google.
    2. For email and password accounts, request a password-reset email and follow its link. Request a fresh link if it expired or was already used.
    3. If you sign in only with Google, manage your password through Google. After resetting a password, sign in again.
    Read the full guide

02

Browse by topic

Two libraries: a guide to every page of a plan, and a plain-English explanation of every rule the model applies.

Plan pages15 guides

Technical concepts57 guides

5 guides

Reading the forecast

Understand chart scales, purchasing power, and the range of possible outcomes.

2 guides

Plan simulators

Explore historical markets and spending that responds to your portfolio.

7 guides

Household & cash flow

Plan life events, family costs, debt payments, and what happens to extra cash.

4 guides

Income & investing

Set up pensions, stock grants, investment returns, dividends, fees, and bonds.

15 guides

Taxes

Learn how income, gains, and deductions affect the modeled tax bill.

3 guides

Homes & property

Plan purchases, sales, rental income, taxes, and the ongoing costs of ownership.

03

The handbook

For when the question is “what does this do?” rather than “why is this not working?”.

OverviewHow it works

What the projection does with your numbers, in six steps, and which year's rules it is a snapshot of.

ChapterProjection & graphs

How income, spending, property, and investment growth compound into the year-by-year forecast, and how to read each chart.

ChapterTax & funding

How federal, state, and payroll taxes are priced, and the order accounts are drawn from when a year needs more cash than it earns.

289 termsFinancial terms glossary

Plain-English definitions of the words behind retirement, taxes, and investing, from FIRE and the 4% rule to RMDs and step-up in basis.

18 introductionsFeature introductions

One page per feature: the workflow, a worked example, what to read on the screen, and the questions people ask.

Six householdsExample plans

Invented households, each worked all the way through, so you can see a finished forecast before entering your own numbers.

04

Still need help?

Write to usContact the team

A real, reachable address: team@moneywhatif.com. Say which page you were on and what you expected; leave your account details and plan figures out.

SuggestFeature requests

Something the planner should do and does not? Post it where others can vote for it and follow what gets built.

Walk throughPage tours

A guided walkthrough of each page of the workspace, available from any saved plan once you are signed in.

The Help chip in the corner of every page searches these same quick answers without leaving the plan you are on.