Financial Planner Settings

Household Budget

Scenarios

Take-home income
Spendingregular categories
Savings
Tax set-aside
Left over each month

Monthly planner

Starts at each category's average. Type a new number to try a change.
CategoryAvgLow – high monthPlanned / moChange

Income (take-home)

Savings

Yearly and one-time costs

Explore spending

Pick a category to highlight it month by month and see where the money went.

All spending by month

Click a month to filter the transactions below. Click it again to show all months.

Top merchants

Transactions

College 529s

Rough projections. Full cost of attendance for the whole degree, no financial aid.

Contributions stop at high school graduation. The comparison uses the balance on graduation day, so it ignores growth while the money is spent down. "Today's dollars" converts the gap back at the college-cost inflation rate you pick.

Retirement

Monthly income at each retirement age, in today's dollars.
Retires at

Everything here is in today's dollars, so amounts compare directly. Bars are income after the retirement tax rate set under Spending over time. Click a bar or a table row to pick that age.

Assumptions

0% means pay just keeps up with inflation. Raises grow take-home pay each year until retirement and scale up pensions based on final pay.

Return & inflation
Tick a preset to set both sliders, then fine-tune.

Account balances are grown at the return rate, converted to today's dollars at the inflation rate, then turned into monthly income with the withdrawal rate (4% a year is a common rule of thumb). Pension estimates are treated as today's dollars. Income is compared with projected retirement spending from Spending over time below.

Spending over time

How spending changes as children leave home and you retire, against income each year.

Monthly money in and out, by year

Spending (incl. taxes, health insurance)Savings and investingTake-home income

Category changes

Starting guesses you can edit. "Kids gone" is the change once all children are out (part of it applies while some are still home). "Retired" applies on top of that after you retire.

CategoryTodayKids goneRetiredIn retirement

Retirement costs

%

Pensions, account withdrawals and most Social Security are taxed. 10–15% overall is a common rough rate.

What's built in