View The Planner

 All images below are screen shots of The 2024 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.

• 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(s) when you intend to claim Social Security benefits, or your current benefit(s) if already claiming.
• Your expected Social Security benefit(s) at Full Retirement Age (this can be found at the Social Security website - www.ssa.gov).
• 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), as well as 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 non-retirement cash and investment balances, by spouse (if married),  and the expected interest/return rates for those savings.
• Use different return rates for before (take more risk?) and after (take less risk?) retirement.

• 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 or investment 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 principal/interest 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.

The last section of this page asks you to itemize your current and future expenses.

• 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 10 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.

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

• 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 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) .
• 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.

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

• 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 pension income, if desired, so that you don't have to figure it out year by year.
• Easily transfer the total for each spouse to their main Taxable Income column (seen above).

                              3. The Results Page

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

• Taxable ordinary and interest income.
• Social Security income.
• Total Non-Retirement (cash/investment) savings balance.
• HSA savings balance.
• 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 savings balance 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 (ordinary, Social Security, non-taxable, and distributions) available for expenses.
• Total itemized expenses.
• Total Federal/State tax liability.
• Total expenses (itemized expenses plus taxes).
• Total amount automatically saved from any excess income and RMD's.
• Total non-retirement savings balance (cash/investments).
• 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 your total retirement savings over time, as well as the relationship of expenses to distributions.

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. Don't despair! 
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!