Enter the access code from your purchase receipt.
Set your numbers once in Projection — every other module updates itself. Nothing is stored, nothing leaves this page. Your numbers are yours.
This is the engine room. The six sliders here feed every other tab, so set these first and the whole Command Center fills itself.
Do: use your real numbers, even the uncomfortable ones. Then drag the growth slider up and down to see your best case and worst case — the truth lives somewhere between them.
Don't: treat the growth rate as a promise. It's an assumption, and the future doesn't sign contracts. And don't panic at a red BEHIND — knowing the size of the gap is the whole point. Now it has a number, and numbers can be worked on.
One more thing: nothing you type is saved anywhere. Close the page and it resets — that's on purpose. Your numbers never leave your screen.
These drive every module. Be honest — the math doesn't judge.
This takes the numbers you set in Projection and asks one question three ways: what does retiring at this age versus that age actually cost or buy you? Each age shows the balance you'd arrive with, and the monthly income that balance supports.
Do: drag the three ages around. The gaps between the bars are the price tags on your options — a lot of people are surprised by how much three extra working years buy, or how little.
Don't: read the biggest bar as the right answer. Waiting wins on paper; health, energy, and what you want from your sixties get a vote the math can't count. This prices the choice. You make it.
Same money, three futures. Drag the ages; everything reprices.
Waiting isn't automatically right — health and need get a vote. This prices the choice; you make it.
Everything before this tab was about building the pile. This one spends it. It starts from your projected balance at retirement (pulled from Projection) and drains it year by year: the balance grows a little, you withdraw a little more each year, and the chart shows when the two lines lose the race.
Do: start your first-year withdrawal near four percent of your balance — that's the classic rule of thumb — then stress it. Push the withdrawal up until the money dies before ninety, and now you know your ceiling.
Don't: set retirement growth as high as your working-years rate. Most people dial risk down once the paychecks stop, so a lower number here is the honest one. And respect the cliff: a bad market in your first retired years bites much harder than the same crash later — this chart shows the average path, and averages hide bad luck.
Starts from your projected balance at retirement (from Projection).
You paid into this for decades — timing decides how much comes back. This tab needs exactly one number: your monthly benefit at full retirement age, straight off your statement at ssa.gov (free account, two minutes). From that, it prices all three claiming paths.
Do: get the real figure from ssa.gov instead of guessing — the slider is only as honest as the number you feed it. Then look at where the lines cross on the chart: that crossing point is your breakeven, the age where waiting starts to out-pay claiming early.
Don't: read this as "always wait until seventy." If your health is poor or you need the money at sixty-two to live on, claiming early can be the right call — a bigger check you collect for fewer years isn't automatically a win. The factors here are close approximations of the official rules, not your personal SSA math.
One number needed: your monthly benefit at full retirement age, from your statement at ssa.gov.
Factors approximate SSA reduction and delay-credit rules for a nineteen-sixty-or-later birth year: seventy percent at sixty-two, one hundred percent at sixty-seven, one hundred twenty-four percent at seventy.
One goal: every balance at zero before the last paycheck. Add each debt with its balance and what you actually pay monthly, and it counts down the months — then checks each one against your retirement date from Projection.
Do: list everything, even the small ones. If something shows NOT YET, you have two levers: pay more each month, or retire later. The table shows you exactly how far off you are.
Don't: expect interest math here — this is deliberately blunt: balance divided by payment. Real payoff can take somewhat longer than shown, so treat these months as the optimistic floor, not a guarantee. Your mortgage is your call — include it if you want it gone before retirement, leave it out if you've decided to carry it.
Balance divided by payment — clean and blunt on purpose. Add your real ones.
| Debt | Balance | Monthly payment | Months left | Before retirement? |
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