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Explore the page
- 01
Choose a finish line
Goal Plan offers seven targets: never run out of money, retire by a chosen age, reach a net worth by an age, spend a set amount in retirement, leave a set amount behind, become financially independent by an age, or keep lifetime tax under a ceiling.
Amounts use today’s dollars, and ages refer to you. A requested age outside the forecast is moved to a year the plan contains, with a note showing the adjustment.
- 02
Say what may change
Allow or exclude saving and investing, flexible spending, debt payoff, withdrawal order, Social Security claiming, retirement timing, property sales, relocation, and tax strategies. Home sales and relocation require their levers to be enabled before the search considers them.
Set a spending-cut limit and the maximum number of actions. The search works within those choices; a result that misses the target may be the best path it found within them.
- 03
Read the recommended path
The page tests changes by running the whole funded projection, then combines promising actions and removes steps the target no longer needs. Its aim is to find a small, less disruptive set of sufficient changes. Strategy Lab instead helps you browse and rank improvements.
Read the goal result alongside changes in net worth, estate, lifetime tax, and shortfalls. A Spending floor note identifies a path that stays funded partly by spending less than the requested retirement budget.
- 04
Understand each action’s contribution
On its own shows the effect of an action applied separately. Adds here shows what it contributes after the preceding actions are already in place. The figures can differ because actions reinforce or overlap with one another.
The page also identifies changes it tested and dropped, along with forced property sales and any remaining unfunded year on the resulting path.
- 05
Try the changes in your plan
Choose Try these moves in What-If to inspect the proposed plan. Review its projection and tax years, then use Keep or Save as new where available to save it, or Revert to return to the starting plan.
A found path is a deterministic result under the current assumptions. Use Plan Resilience to explore how that candidate behaves across different market histories.
What changes what
Controls & settings
Check what each control changes and whether it recalculates your forecast.
Changes the target and reruns the search. Retirement and spending targets can first change the desired plan, then search for ways to fund it.
Changes the candidate set and runs a fresh search within those constraints.
Applies the candidate to a preview so you can inspect its full forecast before keeping it.
Reading the result
Read the results
Check whether the current plan already meets the target before adding changes.
Judge the combined path by its actual result; do not add standalone action benefits and assume they will combine exactly.
Review spending reductions and forced sales even when the target is reached. Meeting one goal can involve a tradeoff elsewhere.
One plan, several readings
Related pages
Strategy Lab →
Browse a ranked set of possible improvements when you want to explore alternatives before choosing a firm target.
Projection →
Inspect the candidate’s individual years in What-If before keeping the changes.
Plan resilience →
Test the candidate against varied market paths after reviewing its baseline result.
Keep following the math
Key concepts
Keep in mind
Model limits
This is a bounded search over implemented actions, not proof of the globally best or smallest possible plan.
A successful target does not imply success under every market path. The result follows the plan’s current assumptions and allowed actions.
This guide documents the page as built. The figures on it follow the plan’s own assumptions; none of it is individualized tax, legal, Medicare, or investment advice.