Disclaimer

This page says the projection is an estimate. Two documentation pages say by how much, and in which direction: what's modeled and what isn't is the complete area-by-area account, and simplifications sorts every shortcut in the model by whether it flatters your plan or penalizes it. If you are deciding how much weight to give a number, those are more useful than anything below.

Not financial advice

Forecast Your Money is a self-directed calculator. It is not a registered investment adviser, a broker-dealer, a tax adviser, or a fiduciary, and using it does not create an advisory relationship of any kind. Nothing it displays is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, to adopt any withdrawal strategy, or to take any particular tax position.

Your situation contains things this tool never sees. Before acting on anything here, talk to a qualified professional: a CFP® or fee-only adviser for planning, a CPA or enrolled agent for tax, an attorney for estate questions.

Projections are estimates, not predictions

Every number in a forecast depends on assumptions: how long you live, what you spend, what you earn, what inflation does, and how markets behave for the rest of your life. Small changes to those inputs can produce large changes in the outcome. A forecast is a way to compare scenarios and test how fragile a plan is, not a statement about what will happen.

Market returns are simulated from historical data spanning 1928 to 2025. Past performance does not guarantee or indicate future results. The future may fall outside anything in that record. A result showing a high chance of success is not a promise, and one showing failure is not a certainty.

Tax figures are planning estimates only

Forecast Your Money applies 2026 statutory federal and state tax tables and inflates them with simulated inflation. That is more than a flat "assumed tax rate," but it is still a simplification. In particular, the tax engine does not model:

• Itemized deductions. The standard deduction is always applied
• Local or municipal income taxes
• The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
• Tax credits of any kind, and the Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction
• Filing statuses other than Single and Married Filing Jointly. Head of household and married filing separately are not available
• Roth conversions
• State exclusions for pension and retirement income
• Paycheck withholding. A year's tax is treated as a single payment
• Estate, gift, inheritance, or generation-skipping taxes
• Tax treatment outside the United States

Tax law also changes. Rates, brackets, thresholds, and rules in effect today may not be in effect in the years a forecast covers, and the tables here are not updated in real time.

What the model leaves out

Some things are excluded by design, and they can matter a great deal to a real plan:

• Real estate values. Home and property values are not treated as retirement assets. A home sale can be entered as one-time income, and a mortgage as a liability, but property equity does not appear in the asset projection.
• Rebalancing and per-account returns. Every account grows at the rate its own stocks / bonds / cash mix earns, against one shared market model. There is no per-account rate override: an account earns a bond-like return by holding bonds. The rebalancing strategy you pick decides whether the plan holds the household at its target at all. The default steers through tax-sheltered accounts and cash flow, and sells in taxable accounts only as far as that adds no tax, so the overall mix can sit away from the target when closing the gap would realize a gain; Let it drift never trades to a mix. Neither one ever realizes a gain to rebalance. 529 and HSA accounts are never traded toward the retirement mix. Individual funds, expense ratios, and advisory fees are not modeled.
• Employer 401(k) match. Employee contributions are modeled; a matching employer contribution is not. For anyone still working, this understates what the plan accumulates.
• Roth conversions and conversion ladders, along with 72(t) equal payments and the early-withdrawal exceptions. An early retiree who would really use these looks worse here than in life.
• Healthcare inflation, Medicare premiums, and long-term care as distinct categories. Healthcare spending rises with general inflation, which is optimistic.
• Delayed RMDs while still working. The exception that lets some people defer required distributions from a current employer's plan is not modeled.
• Annuities, pensions with survivor elections, long-term care costs, disability, divorce, and similar life events beyond what you can express as income or expense entries.

Where a projection depends on something in this list, treat the output as a rough sketch.

Your data

Plans you create are stored in your own browser on your own device. Forecast Your Money does not ask for bank credentials and does not connect to your financial accounts. Because your data lives locally, clearing your browser storage, switching browsers, or using a different device means your plans will not be there. There is no export yet and no backup to restore from, so keep your own records of anything important to you. The privacy page covers what is and is not collected.

Using this tool

Forecast Your Money is free, for personal planning. Please do not scrape it, resell it, or try to break it. It is under active development, which means it may change, and features may be added or removed without notice.

If you are a financial professional using this with clients, everything it produces is illustrative. Reviewing the output, meeting your own regulatory and disclosure obligations, and exercising your own professional judgment remain entirely yours.

Accuracy and availability

This tool is provided "as is," without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or accuracy. Calculations may contain errors. Reference data may be out of date. The service may be unavailable or change without notice. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Forecast Your Money and its authors accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from use of, or reliance on, this tool or its output.

Questions

If you think something here is wrong, whether a tax table, a formula, or a stated limitation, please say so. Corrections are welcome. This software is still under development; feedback of any kind is welcome at feedback@ForecastYourMoney.com.

Last updated August 25, 2026.