Every number in RetireBlueprint Pro is built from your own inputs and a transparent set of rules. This page lays out exactly what each assumption is, how each figure is derived, and the reasoning behind it — so you (and any advisor you share this with) can see how the plan works, not just what it concludes.
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Your plan is a deterministic year-by-year projection that starts from your current account balances and steps forward one year at a time until the end of your plan horizon.
How it's derivedEach year the engine grows every account by its own expected return, adds any contributions still in effect, applies your income sources as they switch on (employment, Social Security, pension, other), subtracts your planned spending grown by inflation, pays federal and state taxes, takes any required minimum distributions, and draws whatever is still needed from the portfolio in a tax-efficient order. What remains at year-end is your ending liquid balance for that year, which becomes the starting point for the next.
WhyA transparent annual ledger is auditable line by line — you can trace any year's result back to its inputs, which a black-box formula can't offer.
How it's derivedEach account carries its own expected return that you set on the Inputs page. For whole-portfolio figures, the engine uses a balance-weighted blend of those returns — larger accounts pull the blended rate toward their own return.
For the Monte Carlo simulation, volatility is derived from that blended return rather than guessed. The blended return is mapped to an equity weight between a bond-like floor (about 4% return, ~6% volatility) and an all-equity ceiling (about 9% return, ~18% volatility); the volatility is blended the same way and capped to a sensible 5–19% range. So a ~7% portfolio is treated as a balanced stock/bond mix (~13% volatility), not as pure equity.
WhyReturn and risk should stay internally consistent. Pairing a moderate return with all-equity volatility would describe a portfolio that doesn't exist and would understate the plan's resilience.
How it's derivedYour general inflation rate grows your living expenses every year. Social Security benefits grow by a separate COLA rate, and healthcare uses its own (typically higher) healthcare-inflation rate, all set by you on Inputs.
WhyDifferent costs rise at different speeds. Inflating everything at one rate would understate healthcare and overstate the erosion of COLA-protected income.
How it's derivedEach person's Social Security and pension begin in the year you specify and grow by COLA thereafter. When the first spouse passes, household guaranteed income steps down by your survivor-reduction setting — reflecting that the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits, not both.
WhyClaiming age materially changes lifetime income, and the survivor step-down is a real and often-overlooked risk that this plan models explicitly.
Your spending is split into a must-pay floor — base living costs plus healthcare plus debt payments — and discretionary extra on top.
How it's derivedThe floor is taken straight from your budget and grows with inflation. The discretionary extra follows the retirement “smile”: more in the early go-go years, less through the slow-go middle years, and least in the no-go later years (apart from healthcare). Each phase's amount comes from your plan, applied to the years you set.
WhySeparating must-pay from nice-to-have is what lets the plan protect you in a downturn — it can trim discretionary spending without ever touching essentials.
How it's derivedBefore age 65 the plan budgets for an ACA marketplace bridge (or COBRA) to cover the gap to Medicare; from 65 it switches to Medicare premiums and supplements. Healthcare costs grow by the healthcare-inflation rate, faster than general inflation.
WhyThe pre-Medicare years are one of the most expensive and most underestimated parts of an early retirement; modeling the bridge separately keeps the floor honest.
How it's derivedFederal tax uses the 2025 brackets and standard deduction for your filing status; your state rate is applied on top; long-term capital gains on taxable accounts are taxed at their own rates. Beginning at age 73, required minimum distributions are pulled from pre-tax accounts and taxed as income whether or not you need the cash.
WhyTaxes and RMDs are often the largest controllable cost in retirement; modeling them year by year is what makes the Roth-conversion and withdrawal-order analysis meaningful.
How it's derivedWhen income doesn't cover spending, the engine draws from taxable / brokerage accounts first, then pre-tax (401k/403b/IRA), and preserves Roth for last. RMDs and any planned Roth conversions are handled automatically alongside this order.
WhySpending taxable money first and letting tax-advantaged accounts keep compounding generally lowers lifetime taxes and stretches the portfolio — Roth is most valuable when left to grow tax-free the longest.
How it's derivedEach person's projected death year is the current year plus the difference between the planning age you set and their current age. The plan runs to the later of the two, so the longer-lived spouse is funded all the way through.
WhyPlanning only to average life expectancy leaves real longevity risk on the table; funding the longer life is the conservative, responsible choice.
How it's derivedPlan Confidence summarizes whether your projected funds last through your horizon and whether they finish at or above your legacy goal. A plan that stays fully funded for life and meets its goal scores high; one that depletes early or falls short of the goal scores lower.
WhyA single, honest headline number makes it easy to see the effect of a change — spend a little less, delay a year, convert to Roth — without reading every row.
How it's derivedYour legacy goal is the ending estate you want to leave. The plan compares your projected ending balance to that goal and reports the gap and the percentage achieved. The goal also serves as the finish line that the stress tests and Monte Carlo measure success against.
WhyTying success to your goal — rather than simply “not running out” — produces a more demanding and more meaningful test of the plan.
How it's derivedA stress test re-runs your real plan through the live engine with a market crash applied — a chosen drop in the first retirement year, optionally a second downturn later, with optional inflation and Social Security overrides. Taxes, RMDs, and Social Security timing are all still reflected. It reports your ending balance versus your legacy goal, the first year (if any) you fall below it, and the safe extra spend: the most discretionary spending you could add and still hit the goal under that crash.
WhyA crash early in retirement forces selling at the bottom while you withdraw — the single biggest risk to a plan. Seeing which lever bends first (your spending or your legacy) shows where the plan's real resilience lies.
How it's derivedThe Monte Carlo runs 1,000 randomized market futures against your actual year-by-year withdrawal plan, only through your plan horizon. Each year's return is drawn around your blended expected return using the volatility described in section 2, with a fat-tailed model for occasional shocks and a volatility-drag correction so the simulation's average tracks your main projection rather than quietly penalizing it. Withdrawals follow a mid-year convention, and Guyton-Klinger guardrails trim discretionary spending (by default 10%) in years when the withdrawal rate climbs more than 20% above its starting level. Success means a future ends at or above your legacy goal; always-covers-essentials means it never falls short of your must-pay floor.
WhyReal markets don't deliver a smooth average. The median and success rate land below the average on purpose — that gap is sequence-of-returns risk made visible. Planning around the median and the success rate, not the average, is the honest way to read it.
How it worksYour figures stay in your own Google Sheet. The app reads your plan on demand to draw each page and does not keep a database of customer finances. For speed, a read may be held in memory for roughly 45 seconds and then expires — nothing is permanently stored.
WhyYour retirement numbers are sensitive. Keeping them in a file you own and control is more private than handing them to a vendor database.
These figures are projections, not predictions. They depend entirely on the assumptions above; change an assumption and the results change. Markets, tax law, healthcare costs, and your own circumstances will differ from any model.
RetireBlueprint Pro is an educational planning tool, not financial, tax, or legal advice. For decisions, consider consulting a licensed professional. You can edit any assumption on the Inputs page and re-run the plan at any time.