What the numbers mean

Probability of success

The planner plays out a thousand possible futures for the markets, year by year, to the end of the plan. In each one it pays your spending and goals, adds Social Security, the pensions and your income, pays federal and California tax on what comes out of each account, takes off the advisor’s fee, and lets the rest grow or shrink with that year’s markets. The probability of success is the share of futures in which the money never runs out. The same thousand futures are used every time, so a change in the score always comes from a change in the plan, never from luck.

The confidence zone

• Below 75% (amber): a real chance you’d have to cut spending sharply later.
• 75% to 90% (green): the usual target. In the bad futures you’d adjust, but not drastically.
• Above 90% (blue): you could probably spend more or retire sooner.

Nobody spends straight into a market crash without adjusting, so 100% isn’t the goal: it usually means working longer than you need to.

Today’s dollars

Every amount is in today’s money. A cost that rises with inflation stays the same number; health care, which rises faster, grows; a fixed payment like the mortgage or the pension shrinks over time, because each dollar buys less.

Not counted yet

These are being built, in this order (the plan’s phase list):

• Live prices for your holdings.