Retirement Planner
What you are on track for, what it looks like coming back out, and why the last ten years do most of the work.
Three questions
Most calculators only answer the first one.
Going in
The projection
What your current savings rate builds by the year you want to stop working, and what happens to that number when you change the rate.
Coming out
The spend-down
How long it lasts once you start pulling from it. Different question, different math, and the one almost nobody models.
All of it
The whole flight
Both halves as one path, with sliders you move to see how a change in one phase shows up in the other.
1000 versions of your retirement
Based on your inputs and assertions, your success probability maps out in front of you.
Sample data. A fictional household, shown to illustrate how the tool works.
The tool runs a thousand different market histories against your numbers. The shaded band is the middle eighty percent of what came back. One in ten finished above it. One in ten finished below.
The line through the middle is the fifty-fifty midpoint, and it is the number every other calculator hands you as if it were the answer. It is not a forecast and it is not a promise.
The figure that should move you is how often the money ran out. That one is on the far left, in red, and it is the first thing you see.
Then it has to come back out
Most retirement planning stops at the day you retire. That is when the harder math starts.
The order you pull from matters
Taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free accounts do not come out the same way. Which one you draw first changes what you keep, and the difference compounds across a retirement the same way growth did on the way in.
The first few years carry outsized weight
Pulling income out of a portfolio while it is down does damage that a later recovery does not fully undo. The plan has to account for the possibility, not assume an average year every year.
Social Security timing changes the whole shape
Claiming earlier means more years of a smaller check. Claiming later means fewer years of a larger one, and it changes how hard the portfolio has to work in between.
Spending is not flat and never was
The early years usually cost more than the middle ones. Healthcare tends to arrive late. A model that assumes one number for thirty years is describing somebody who does not exist.
Every year, visualized
Which accounts the money came from, what it cost in tax, and where the required distributions land.
Sample data. A fictional household, shown to illustrate how the tool works.
Land the Rocket
How much you save is only as important as how much you keep.
Our rocket launch and land simulator helps you visualize your projection.
Contributions are thrust. The arc climbs as high as the nest egg you build. At retirement the ship flips and burns retrograde, and everything after that is a descent you have to survive.
Social Security fires a boost partway down. Required distributions drag on you. Move any dial and the whole flight changes shape.
What makes it stick is that you can fail in three different places, and they are three different mistakes.
Sample data. A fictional household, shown to illustrate how the tool works.
Phase 1 · Ascent
Accumulation
Contributions are thrust. The arc only climbs as high as the nest egg you build.
Fails as a low arc that never reaches orbit. Splashes down early.
Phase 2 · Approach
Pre-retirement
The flip and the retro-burn. You commit to a descent, and to when Social Security fires and how hard the distributions hit.
Fails as a high arc that veers off right after the flip. Retired onto an impossible descent.
Phase 3 · Descent
Drawdown
A slow burn to touchdown, with the Social Security catch and the distribution sag along the way.
Fails as a good descent that burns out late. Crashes just short.
What it needs from you
What you have saved now
Across every retirement account, plus anything else earmarked for this.
What you add each year
Your contributions and the employer match, if there is one.
When you want to stop working
An age. It can be a guess — move it later and watch what changes.
What you expect to spend
Annual spending in retirement, in today’s dollars. This is the input people underestimate.
The assumptions you want to test
Rate of return, inflation, how long you plan for. You set them, and you can change every one.
How we keep the numbers honest
Conservative inputs, and a plain list of what no model can know.
We project with conservative rates
Two reasons. We are not in the business of false hope, and the point of preparing is being able to persevere when things go badly.
It is easy to raise the return assumption and drop the inflation assumption until the chart looks successful. What good would a lie do?
Every assumption is yours, visible, and changeable. Move the growth rate or the inflation rate and you acknowledge the change, and that acknowledgment is recorded with a timestamp.
The tool does not hide what it is guessing.
What we cannot predict
- Sequence of returns. The order the good and bad years arrive in matters as much as the average, and no model knows the order.
- Certainty. A Monte Carlo run models a thousand markets. Yours could be the one thousand and first. You get probability, not certainty.
- Returns, inflation, and tax rates. All three will change. Nobody knows to what.
- Your life. Your income, your spending, and your health are not linear, so we do not project them that way.
The output is not a promise and it is not advice. It is what the math says if the assumptions turn out to be right.
Where this sits in the bigger picture
Retirement is the fourth thing we deal with, not the first.
A retirement projection built on top of credit card debt and no budget is a number without a foundation under it. The order is not arbitrary.
What you do with the answer
The point is not the number at the end. It is what you change on Monday.
Whether your contribution rate is enough
Move it up by one percent and watch the curve. That is the most useful thirty seconds on this page.
What working two more years is worth
It does two things at once: adds contributions and removes withdrawal years. The combined effect surprises people.
Whether you can retire earlier than you thought
Sometimes the answer is yes. It is worth knowing either way rather than assuming.
How much your spending assumption is driving everything
Change the annual spending number and watch how far the whole plan moves. For most households it matters more than the rate of return.
Questions people ask
What rate of return should I use?
We will not tell you a number to use, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does. Run it at a few different rates instead. The gap between them tells you how sensitive your plan is, which is more useful than any single figure.
Does this include Social Security?
You can enter what you expect to receive and at what age. Pull the estimate from your statement at ssa.gov rather than guessing — it is the one input you can get an actual figure for.
Do I have to connect my accounts?
No. There is no bank or brokerage login anywhere in this. You type in the balances, or import a spreadsheet.
Is this financial advice?
No. It is software that runs math on numbers you enter and assumptions you choose. It does not know your situation, and using it does not make you a client or create an advisory relationship.
Is it really free?
Thirty days of everything, no card, using the code at signup. After that there is a free tier that keeps working, and paid tiers for the rest of the workspace.
Find out what you are on track for.
Thirty days free, no card, and no account connections. Enter what you have and see the shape of it.
Run Your Numbers FreeThe Paraclete Studio is a product of Paraclete Life Planning LLC. Software, not advice. Using it does not create an advisory relationship. Projections are illustrations based on assumptions you provide, are not predictions, and do not guarantee any result. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.
Work with us
The Paraclete Studio
The firm
Registered adviser
Paraclete Life Planning LLC
Pensacola, Florida
Firm CRD #325341
John C. Hendry III · IAR CRD #7699097
Verify us at adviserinfo.sec.govParaclete Life Planning LLC is a registered investment adviser. Nothing on this site is individualized investment, tax, or legal advice. The Paraclete Studio is software, not advice, and using it does not create an advisory relationship. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.
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