Profile & assumptions

Where to find it

Open the app and go to My Plan. The first panel, Profile & assumptions, is where you tell the forecast the basics about you (and your spouse or partner, if you have one) and set a few plan-wide defaults. Everything else in your plan builds on these numbers, so it's worth getting them right first.

You (and your spouse)

• Your name — optional, just a label so the plan feels like yours.
• Your birth month — the month and year you were born, like 1958-03. The app uses this to work out your age in every future month, so your run-out date can be shown as an age (for example, "age 84") as well as a date.
• Your life expectancy (age) — the age the plan should run until, in whole years. This is the single most important assumption for how long the projection covers. If you enter 92, the forecast runs month by month until you turn 92.

If you have a spouse or partner, fill in their name, birth month, and life expectancy too. To plan for just yourself, leave the spouse fields blank (or use Remove spouse).

Whole years only

Life expectancy is entered as a whole number of years — 92, not 92.5. The projection is built month by month from your birth month, and a fraction of a year doesn't land on a month it can count to. The field rounds anything you type to the nearest whole year.

If you saved a plan before this rule existed and it held a fractional value, the app fixes it as the plan loads and tells you what it changed — a notice above the tabs reading, for example, "Your life expectancy of 70.3 isn't a whole number of months — using 70 years 4 months." Nothing else in your plan is touched. See How your work is saved.

How life expectancy sets the end of the plan

The projection ends at the longest-lived person's life expectancy. If you plan to 90 and your spouse plans to 94, the forecast runs all the way to age 94 for your spouse — because your savings still need to last that long.

There's no single "right" number here. Many people use their family history and general health as a guide, and some deliberately plan a few years long to be safe. This is a planning estimate, not a prediction.

If everyone in the plan has already passed the age entered for them by the time the plan starts, there's nothing left to project — the app says “Not ready to judge” rather than showing a verdict on a plan that has already ended.

Plan start month

Plan start month is the first month of the projection — usually this month or the month you retire, like 2026-07. All your expense amounts are treated as "today's dollars" at this month and grown forward from here (see Expenses & debts).

Inflation (default)

Inflation (default) is the yearly rate the app uses to grow your expenses over time, so a $500 grocery bill today costs more in fifteen years. Enter it as a percentage — for example, 2.5%.

A concrete example: at 2.5% inflation, $4,000 of monthly spending today becomes about $5,250 a month in ten years. That climb is exactly why savings that look comfortable now can still run short later.

This is the default. You can override inflation on any individual expense — handy for things like healthcare (often higher) or a fixed loan payment that never rises (see Expenses & debts). See the glossary for a plain-English definition of inflation.

Model income taxes

At the bottom of this panel is a Model income taxes toggle. Leaving it off keeps the projection tax-free and simple. Turning it on makes the forecast estimate federal (and optional state) income tax, tax your Social Security realistically, and force Required Minimum Distributions from 401(k)/IRA accounts starting at age 73 (75 if you were born in 1960 or later).

It's a big enough topic to have its own page — see Taxes & RMDs for what it does and when to switch it on.

What to do next

Once your profile is set, add your income streams, your expenses & debts, and your accounts. Then head to the Forecast tab to see the projection.