Claim at 62
age 65
work-optional
The full report runs the same Monte Carlo engine for everyone. What changes by life stage is the question worth asking. Here is the question each of four imagined people brings to it, and the part of the report that answers it.
"Probability of success" has a specific meaning here. It is the share of simulated market paths in which the portfolio is not depleted before the planning horizon — the age the plan is modeled through. A result "at 85% confidence" through age 95 means the portfolio lasted to age 95 in roughly 85 of 100 simulated sequences. It is a frequency estimate under the model's assumptions, not a prediction and not a guarantee. Because the model draws from a fat-tailed return distribution, the same inputs can shift the headline by a few points run to run, so it is best read as a band rather than an exact figure.
Spending is shown after tax, under one flat assumption. The model converts an after-tax monthly spend into a pre-tax portfolio draw using a single 15% blended effective rate, then reports results back in after-tax terms. Real tax outcomes depend on account types, brackets, capital-gains treatment, state tax, and the taxation of Social Security — none of which this flat rate captures. Treat the tax layer as a simplification, not a tax plan.
At 29, retirement is an abstraction. The balance is small, the contributions feel modest, and any single year barely moves the picture. Run a full-plan simulation — one that carries the accumulation years and their sequence risk, not just the drawdown — and the headline probability often reads lower than people expect. That number, on its own, is discouraging and not very useful.
What the report does instead is show which inputs move the projected odds the most. At Maya's age the largest mover is almost always time. Because capital added early has decades of compounding ahead of it, the model can show how much more a dollar saved now is worth than the same dollar saved later. For someone her age, that comparison is the part of the report worth reading.
The distance between that marker and the target isn't a verdict. It's a measure of how much room there is to move, and how many years she has to move it.
By his mid-forties, David has a real balance and a real target. His question is whether his saving is enough, and where his next dollar of effort does the most good. The report answers the first part by estimating the nest egg his goal requires at retirement and comparing it to where his current path is heading — the gap, stated plainly.
The second part is what most calculators skip. The report ranks the moves available to him — working longer, spending less, saving more, adding money today, or changing when Social Security starts — by how much each one changes the projected odds. It does not tell him which to choose; it shows the size of each, so the decision is informed rather than guessed.
| If David… | Modeled success | Change | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works two more years | 89% | +15 pts | +2 years working |
| Trims spend $400/mo | 80% | +6 pts | lower monthly lifestyle |
| Saves $500/mo more | 79% | +5 pts | more set aside now |
| Claims SS at 70, not 67 | 76% | +2 pts | later, larger benefit |
Seen this way, "am I on track?" is no longer a yes-or-no question. It's a short list of moves, each with a known cost and a known effect.
Joan's questions are the most concrete of the four. The report gives her the age at which the model estimates work becomes optional at her spending level — the earliest age her savings are enough to clear the confidence threshold. For someone a year or two from the decision, that single number is the one that matters.
Then there is Social Security. Claiming at 62 pays about 70% of the full benefit; at full retirement age, 100%; at 70, about 124%. The report holds her plan fixed and shows how her three answers shift across all three claim ages, so the timing decision is visible rather than buried. It does not name a "best" age — claiming depends on longevity, a spouse's and survivor's benefits, whether she keeps working, and how benefits are taxed, all of which sit outside the model. It shows the shape of the trade so she can take it to someone who can weigh the rest.
The report also pays attention to the order returns arrive. Two plans with similar long-run returns can end up far apart depending on whether the bad years come early or late: a poor stretch in the first years of retirement does damage that a good long-run average never fully undoes. For someone about to stop earning, that early-window risk is worth seeing before the decision, not after.
A couple with an age gap can't answer the questions separately. Two claim ages, two earning timelines, and a portfolio that has to carry both — the interactions are exactly where a single-number calculator falls short. The report models the working partner's contributions continuing after the first one retires, holds each Social Security election where they set it, and shows how the combined plan holds up. This is where the model's two hardest tests earn their place.
First, spending doesn't stay flat. Most people spend more in early retirement and less later as activity winds down — the go-go, slow-go, no-go pattern. Flat spending is a cautious assumption early and a generous one late. The report runs both so the couple can see the difference, while being clear that a declining curve is a population average, not a personal forecast — health and long-term-care costs, which the model does not include, can reverse it entirely.
Second, the report stress-tests the assumptions themselves. Instead of one return and one inflation rate, it runs a grid of nine combinations and shows where the plan lands in each — the corners that hold and the ones that don't. For a couple whose plan has to survive two long horizons, seeing the spread across futures is more honest than any single point estimate.
| Inflation 2% | Inflation 3% | Inflation 4% | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Return 9% | age 60 | age 61 | age 62 |
| Return 7% | age 62 | age 64 | age 67 |
| Return 5% | age 67 | age 74 | age 81 |
The grid doesn't predict which future arrives. It shows which combinations the plan can absorb and which push the work-optional age out — so the couple can see how much their answer depends on conditions neither of them controls.
Behind the headline answers, the report carries the full detail: a year-by-year ledger of the accumulation phase, then the drawdown in today's dollars and again in nominal terms — balances at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles, spending, income, and draw for each year to the horizon. Nothing in the summary is a number you can't trace back to a row.
The free analysis already answers the first questions — probability of success, sustainable spend at three confidence levels, the age work becomes optional, and the levers that move the odds most. The paid report is the rest of what you've seen here: the Social Security timing comparison, the declining-spend analysis, the failing-paths detail, the nine-future stress grids, and the full year-by-year tables, delivered as a PDF.
The model is the same for everyone. The report is what turns its output into something you can read against your own situation.