Forecast history — how your outlook has changed

What it is

Near the bottom of the Forecast tab there's a collapsed section called Forecast history. Open it and you'll see how your projected run-out date and ending balance have changed month by month.

A single forecast tells you where you stand today. This tells you which direction you're moving — which is often the more useful fact. A run-out date that has slipped two years earlier across four months is a signal worth acting on long before the plan actually fails.

Where the snapshots come from

You don't have to do anything. Once per calendar month, while you're using the app, it saves a copy of your plan as it stands. Each snapshot is the whole plan — your people, income, expenses, accounts, and assumptions — so the app can re-run the projection from it later and show you what you would have been told that month.

Snapshots are saved to your account, so this needs you to be signed in. If you're using the app without an account, the section won't appear.

Nothing is captured retroactively: the history starts from the first month you used the app after this feature existed, and builds one point per month from there. Early on it will say "No snapshots yet — one will be captured automatically each month you use the app." That's expected.

Reading it

Projected run-out year — one point per snapshot, only shown if at least one snapshot had a run-out date. The dashed line marks the current year. A line sloping down means your money is projected to run out earlier than it used to; sloping up is good news.

Projected ending balance — what's left at the end of the plan, per snapshot. The dashed line marks zero.

The table lists each snapshot with its run-out date and ending balance, plus the change in balance since the previous snapshot, in green or red.

If your plan has never shown a run-out date, you'll see a green note saying so, and only the ending-balance chart — there's no run-out line to draw.

Why the numbers move

A snapshot re-runs the projection using the plan as it was that month, so changes come from what you changed, plus the passage of time. Common causes:

• You updated account balances after a good or bad market stretch.
• You brought your expenses in line with your real spending (see Your plan vs. your real spending) — this frequently moves the date earlier, honestly.
• You turned on taxes, a long-term-care event, or survivor modelling. Each adds a real cost the plan had been ignoring.
• A year simply passed, so there's one less year of growth ahead of you.

A drop after switching something on isn't your plan getting worse — it's your plan getting more honest. What matters is the trend once your assumptions have settled.

What it isn't

It isn't a record of your actual account balances over time; it's a record of what the projection said. And it isn't the same as named plans, which compare different futures you're considering side by side. Forecast history compares the same plan against its own past.

Snapshots are read-only — there's no way to roll your plan back to an earlier one. Treat it as a trend line, not a backup.

These are educational estimates, not financial advice.