View The Planner

 All images below are screen shots of The 2025 Complete Retirement Planner.
 Please contact us if you have any questions!

                              1. The Set Up Page 

• Interview style questions, with notes to guide you, make all entries quick and easy. 

• Select your Federal tax filing status, and enter optional tax deduction amounts for State Income/Sales tax, Charity, and Medical expenses.
  For each year, TCRP automatically uses the greater of your Standard Deduction or your itemized deductions (shown on the Results page).
• Enter your effective State income tax rate to complete the picture of your tax liability.

 
Enter the following information, by spouse (if married):

• Your current tax-deferred Retirement savings balance(s) for 401k's and IRA's.
• Your current Roth Retirement savings balance(s) for Roth 401k's and IRA's.
• Your desired retirement age(s).
• The age at which you would like distributions from Retirement savings to begin (up to your RMD age).
• The age(s) when you intend to claim Social Security benefits, or your current benefit(s) if already claimed.
• Your expected Social Security benefit(s) at Full Retirement Age (this is shown on your Social Security statement).
• Optional - You may elect to not have Social Security Spousal benefits automatically calculated (necessary for some pensions, or to maintain claimed benefits).
• Optional - Enter a life expectancy age for either spouse. Social Security Survivor benefits will calculate automatically for the surviving spouse,
  and their tax filing status will change to "Single", to model the financial effect of the loss of a spouse.
• Your Health Savings Account (HSA) balance(s), an optional investment return rate, and the age(s) at which HSA distributions should begin.

• Enter the % of excess income to save for any year when income exceeds expenses.
  Enter a conservative percentage to help build a margin of error into your plan, or save the maximum amount. It's up to you!
• Enter balances for Non-Retirement cash savings, short-term invested savings, and long-term invested savings, by spouse (if married),
  and the expected interest/return rates for each of those types of savings.
• Use different return rates for before (take more risk?) and after (take less risk?) retirement.
• Enter a cost basis % for long-term invested savings so that Capital Gains tax can be properly calculated when distributions are needed from these savings.
  Don't know your cost basis? TCRP will use an assumed cost basis based on 75% of the 10 year average return for the S&P 500.
  It's best if you know the original cost of your investments, but if not, we've got you covered!
• Optional for long-term invested savings - indicate if you would like to use the same annual investment return %'s that will be used for Retirement savings,
  rather than the standard "before/after retirement" return rates used for Non-Retirement savings. More flexibility!

• Enter up to 10 significant one-time events, either positive or negative, that may affect retirement savings.
• Assign positive amounts to either spouse's Non-Retirement cash, short-term invested, or long-term invested savings.
• Negative amounts are inflation adjusted and added to expenses in the designated year.
  Great for "what if" scenarios!

There are entries for three current or future mortgages, with the option to pay off early, or sell, any of the properties.

• Real estate taxes can be entered for a property with no mortgage.
• Total expenses adjust automatically in the year that a mortgage ends.     
• Annual mortgage interest and real estate taxes are calculated automatically to provide accurate tax deductions.
  Principal and interest amounts are not inflation adjusted, but real estate taxes are.   

• Enter separate inflation rates for General Expenses and designated Health Care expenses for better accuracy.
• The General inflation rate applies to most expenses, but not to fixed expenses (e.g., auto loans, mortgage payments, etc.) so that total expenses
  aren't artificially inflated over time.
• The Health Care inflation rate applies to designated health care expenses that have historically higher inflation rates than other expenses.
• Stress-test your plan by trying fractionally different inflation rates to see how significant the impact may be to your total outcome.

• Enter your current expenses first, then adjust how, and when, those amounts may change, start, or end, in future time frames.
• Over 50 expenses are listed, plus the ability to enter another 10 of your own (and 11 more that can be re-named, if needed!).
  This offers clarity on how money is being spent (note the % To Total column), creates the ability to calculate expenses for each individual year,
  and allows for inflation protection for fixed expenses.
• Health Savings Account (HSA) eligible expenses, as well as health care expenses subject to the Health Care inflation rate, are specifically noted.
  
  You're 90% Done!

                             2. The Income Page

• For reference, there is an overview of the most common types of retirement savings accounts and their general rules.
• There are also brief instructions for entering the income and savings entries in the section below to help avoid any confusion.

• The investment return % that you expect to earn on your retirement savings.
  If desired, random varying return %'s for Conservative, Moderate, or Aggressive risk tolerances are provided for easier entry.
  Use them for all, or just some, years, and you can still adjust by year!
• The amounts that you plan to contribute to Traditional and Roth 401k's and IRA's.
• Any Qualified Charitable Donations (QCD's) that you expect to use (after age 71) to lower a RMD and to reduce your taxes.
• The amount that you expect your employer to contribute to your retirement savings (if they offer a matching funds policy).
• The amounts that you plan to contribute to a Health Savings Account (HSA) .
• The amounts that you expect to receive from an Inherited IRA.
  Taxes are accounted for and the net amount is automatically added to Non-Retirement savings!
• Expected Taxable Income (e.g., wages, pensions, rental income, etc.). 
• For Roth Conversions, enter a negative amount in the Traditional 401k column, and an equal positive amount in the Roth IRA column.
  Quick and easy! All taxes are accounted for and your balances on the Results page adjust automatically.
  (Warning messages will pop up if the amounts are over the regular contribution limits, but the planner will still use the amounts entered).

Entering this information by year allows you to easily model "what-if" scenarios using different income and contribution amounts for various time frames.
It is also especially helpful to use varying return rates to test Sequence of Returns Risk at the very beginning of retirement when distributions typically start.

• Optional - If needed, there are worksheets to help total multiple sources of income, including any non-taxable income.
  (The optional varying return %'s mentioned above are shown on the left.)
• An annual inflation rate can be applied to wage (or other) income, if desired, so that you don't have to figure it out year by year.
• If any income is from wages, you can elect to have FICA taxes (Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes) calculated on that income.
• Easily transfer the income total for each spouse to their main Taxable Income column (seen above).

You're Done!  Now on to the Results!

                              3. The Results Page

First, you will see the results for each spouse, by year, for:

• Taxable ordinary and interest income.
• Social Security income.
• HSA savings balance.
• Total Non-Retirement (cash/invested) savings balance.
• Non-Retirement savings distributions - based on total need, and proportional to both spouse's balances. 
• Traditional and Roth Retirement savings balances (includes all contributions).
• Retirement savings distributions - based on total need, and proportional to both spouse's balances.
  Required Minimum Distributions (RMD's) are calculated automatically and will override needed distributions, if larger.
• Separate graphs illustrate each spouse's total Non-Retirement and Retirement savings balances over time. 

Finally, you will see the total results (combined for both spouses, if married), by year, for:

• Gross taxable income.
• Total Non-Retirement savings distributions.
• Total Traditional and Roth 401k/IRA savings distributions (includes RMD's).
• The Traditional and Roth 401k/IRA savings withdrawal rate (%).
• Total HSA distributions - used to pay HSA eligible expenses only.
• Total income available for expenses (ordinary, Social Security, non-taxable, and distributions).
• Total annual expenses.
• Total Federal/State tax liability.
• Total expenses (annual expenses plus taxes).
• Total amount auto-saved from excess income and RMD's.
• Total Non-Retirement savings balance (cash/short-term invested/long-term invested).
• Total Traditional and Roth 401k/IRA savings balance.
• Total HSA savings balance.
• Total combined savings balance (Non-Retirement, Retirement, HSA).
• An automatic alert to notify you if you will be affected by IRMAA!
• Federal tax deductions, and Child Tax Credit (if any).
• Separate graphs illustrate:
             • total expenses, taxable income, and savings distributions.
             • total combined (if married) Non-Retirement, Retirement , and total savings.
             • total income tax, capital gains tax, Federal tax, and State tax.

 
Above the Combined Results you will see the note that's most important to you - will your savings last as long as you need them to?
The planner uses a life expectancy of age 90 for this purpose, but still calculates all data (below the note) up to age 100 for reference.
If you have sufficient savings in the year when both spouses have reached age 90, it will tell you your savings balance for that year:

If you should come up short, it will tell you the year that your savings will run out, and how much more is needed. But don't be discouraged! 
You'll be surprised at how just a few adjustments on the Set Up and/or Income pages (not just saving more) can make up a large shortfall.
After all, learning what adjustments are needed to reach your goals is the whole point of creating your plan!

That's how it all works! Easy to use, informative, and with clear instructions to help you every step of the way!

                             4. The Social Security Calculator

                              5. Health Care

Don't forget the Health Care page!
This page explains how Medicare works, outlining its four different parts and what the potential costs are.
It also provides an overview of IRMAA (Income Related Medicare Adjustment Amount), and offers an estimate for Long Term Care insurance policies.
It's a great resource for estimating health care costs in retirement.
One page of reading (no entries!), but it's worth it!



No other planning tool offers all of the features and capabilities of TCRP!

To start creating your own plan with The Complete Retirement Planner, either Click Here 
or select the "Buy Now" button at the top of the page. 
Stop guessing, start planning, retire with confidence.