Will our money last?
Follow your account balances year by year and see the first year spending would go unfunded, if it ever does.
YOUR HOUSEHOLD. YOUR NEXT CHAPTER.
Will our savings last—
and what will taxes take?
RetireNotions projects your household’s income, spending, taxes, Medicare premiums and savings year by year, through to the end of your plan. Change a retirement date, a Social Security claiming age or a Roth conversion strategy and see what it does to your money, all in one place.
- Year-by-year federal and state tax estimates, RMDs and Medicare IRMAA surcharges
- Three Roth conversion strategies compared side by side
- See the first year money would run short, if it does
Free access for invited Beta Testers
Educational estimates, not guaranteed outcomes or personalized advice. Read the projection disclaimer.
Best on a laptop or desktop. RetireNotions works on a phone or tablet, but its side-by-side charts and detailed tables are built for a larger screen.
R / OUTPUT DASHBOARDIllustration
COMPARE ROTH CONVERSION STRATEGIES
Same plan.
Three tax paths.
Each year
Income, spending, withdrawals and conversions
Taxes & premiums
Federal and state tax, Part B and Part D with IRMAA
The bottom line
Ending balances, net worth and any shortfall
Example only — your results depend on your inputs.
3 people per household, including the owner5 saved plans to explore different choicesInvitation-only access for your household
THE QUESTIONS IT HELPS YOU WORK THROUGH
Clear answers to the questions
retirement actually raises.
When should we claim Social Security?
Enter your SSA benefit estimate for a claiming age from 62 to 70, to the month. Compare payment timing alongside wages and pensions; update the benefit estimate when you change the claiming age.
Should we convert to Roth, and how much?
Compare three conversion strategies, each capped by a tax bracket and a Medicare IRMAA tier you choose.
What will RMDs and Medicare cost us?
See required minimum distributions, the tax they add, and the Part B and Part D surcharges two years later.
How much can we spend, and when?
Budget line by line, then shape spending across active, slower and later retirement years.
What if one of us dies first?
Model survivor filing status, Social Security, pensions and inherited accounts for either spouse.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Everything in one plan,
updating as you go.
Spending, line by line
Build a monthly budget across 64 expense lines, set start and end dates, and taper spending over three retirement phases. Healthcare before and after Medicare is handled separately.
Wages, pensions and Social Security
Set each person’s wages and retirement date, pensions and Social Security claiming age. Benefits start in the right month and grow with cost-of-living adjustments.
Account balances and growth
Track combined 401(k)/IRA, Roth, brokerage and cash balances, each with its own growth rate, plus home equity in your net worth. Shortfalls are drawn in a tax-aware order; home equity is not used to fund spending.
Taxes, RMDs and IRMAA
Estimate federal and state income tax every year, including Social Security taxation, capital gains, NIIT, required minimum distributions and Medicare IRMAA surcharges.
Roth conversion strategies
Set three strategies by tax bracket, IRMAA tier and number of years. See lifetime taxes, conversions and ending balances for each, then pick the one that drives your plan.
Plan for either spouse alone
Model the years after a death: filing status, survivor Social Security and pension elections, and who inherits the retirement accounts.
A dashboard you can read
Charts and year-by-year tables of cash flow, federal and state taxes, conversions, balances, marginal tax bracket and IRMAA tier. Income, spending and total-tax views also show today’s dollars.
Try a different path
Save up to five plans. Valid edits save automatically, with a visible save status. Plan history lets authorized editors restore any of the last 50 saved versions.
Plan as a household
Owners can invite up to two other people with editing or viewing access. Switch between households you belong to, with separate plans and permissions for each.
Explore a move in retirement
Choose a manual state-tax rate or automatic estimates for ten supported states. Model one move from the first full calendar year in your new state, and inspect annual state-tax details. Selecting a state alone does not enable automatic tax calculations.
Keep a calculated snapshot
Subscribing and Beta Tester households can import supported workbooks and export inputs, yearly results, RMDs and model notes. Exports are snapshots: editing Excel inputs does not recalculate Results. Import the edited workbook and export again to refresh them.
Ask a question or report an issue
Send feedback inside the app and follow replies and status in My feedback. Conversations are private to you and the Platform administrator. Avoid including financial balances or account numbers.
What you will need
RetireNotions is a detailed planning tool, and it is designed for a laptop or desktop screen (1,180 pixels wide or more). At that size you get the full layout: your assumptions on the left and the charts they drive beside them, updating as you move a slider.
It also runs on a tablet or a phone, where the screens stack into a single column. You can read every chart and change the main assumptions there. Two screens stay wide and scroll sideways on a small display, because narrowing them would make them harder to read: the 64-line expense budget and the federal tax and Medicare IRMAA tables. For setting up a plan in detail, use a computer.
A current version of Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox, and an internet connection. There is nothing to install, and no spreadsheet software is required — Excel import and export are optional, for invited households who prefer to keep their own copy.
Projections are estimates, not guarantees or personalized financial advice. Review the supported household and tax-model scope inside the app before planning. Read the full projection disclaimer.
WHAT IT CALCULATES
Built on real rules,
with its limits stated plainly.
The model uses its supported tax and Medicare rule tables, with future thresholds projected using your assumptions. Automatic state estimates use a 2025 rules baseline, not a promise that every later law change is included. Here is what is in the model, and what is not.
Included
- Federal brackets for Single, Married Filing Jointly and qualifying surviving spouse, with standard, age-65 and 2025–2028 senior deductions
- Taxable Social Security, long-term capital gains and the 3.8% net investment income tax
- Payroll tax on wages, and a state income-tax estimate using a manual rate or supported automatic rules
- Medicare Part B and Part D premiums with IRMAA, using the two-year income lookback
- Required minimum distributions from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table, starting at 72, 73 or 75 by birth year
- Roth withdrawal eligibility checks, cash interest and embedded brokerage gains; monthly proration for supported income and expense dates within annual projections
Simplified or not modeled
- One projection with fixed growth rates: no Monte Carlo odds or sequence-of-returns risk
- Social Security benefits are the amounts you enter from your SSA estimate; the app does not calculate them
- No itemized deductions, AMT, federal tax credits or capital-loss carryovers
- Automatic 2025 state estimates cover California, Illinois, Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. Other states and DC, including Washington, require a manual rate. No local taxes, part-year residency or multistate income
- Separate spouse account pools and automatic inherited-IRA schedules are not modeled; inherited-IRA mode needs an externally determined RMD schedule
- Brokerage dividends and fund distributions are not taxed annually; early-distribution exceptions and Roth basis/seasoning ledgers are not modeled
- Future tax law and Medicare thresholds are forecasts, not published law
Inside the app, Model assumptions and supported calculations at the top of every planning screen lists each topic in full. Review it before relying on a projection.
HOW IT WORKS
Eight steps,
in the order the plan needs them.
The app numbers its screens in this order. The app always opens at step 1, and a new plan starts with sensible defaults already filled in. Valid changes save as you go; the save status confirms when your plan is stored. Results update as you release each slider.
- 01
Your Household Profile and Timeline
Birth dates, expected survival ages and the survivor switch set your planning horizon. Choose your state, a manual or supported automatic state-tax estimate, and an optional future move.
- 02
Income & Social Security
Wages and retirement dates, each person’s pension, and the age each of you claims Social Security.
- 03
Survivor planning
What happens after the first death, using the survival ages from step 1: the share of each pension paid to the survivor, the larger Social Security benefit, inherited accounts, and other income such as annuities.
- 04
Spending Phases
How spending changes from active retirement through the slower and later years.
- 05
Expense Line Items
Your budget, line by line, in dollars per month.
- 06
Assets
Opening balances and growth rates for retirement, Roth, brokerage and cash accounts.
- 07
Roth Conversion Strategy
The tax bracket and Medicare IRMAA tier each conversion strategy is allowed to fill, and which one drives the plan.
- 08
Output Dashboard
Year-by-year taxes, conversions, cash flow and balances, with each year’s tax bracket and IRMAA tier, and all three strategies compared.
Alongside the steps
Tax & IRMAA Tables and RMDs show federal and selected-state reference tables and the required distributions your plan applies; Administration is for your household, its people and your plans. None of them is a step.
Valid edits save to your account automatically — check for “All changes saved” before leaving. Resolve any validation, connection or conflicting-edit message to finish saving. Plan settings & history keeps your 50 most recent versions, so you can restore an earlier one or reset the whole plan and undo it. Downloading an Excel copy is optional and never needed to keep your work.
PRIVATE BY DESIGN
Your financial life
stays in your household.
Your privacy is respected. Other customers cannot access your household’s plans.
Access is by invitation
Through the app, your plans are available only to you and your household’s invited members, according to their assigned roles. There are no public plan-sharing links.
Protected sign-in and storage
Sign in with Google or a verified email/password account. Optional passkeys on supported devices let returning users sign in with a fingerprint, face or device PIN, where enabled. Household access checks protect your workspace, and saved workbook files are held in private storage.
A clear boundary
Platform administration does not automatically grant access to your financial plans. Authorized service operators and infrastructure providers may have technical access needed to operate the service; this is not end-to-end encrypted storage.
BEFORE YOU START PLANNING
Important information about projections
RetireNotions is an educational retirement-planning tool. Its projections are hypothetical estimates—not guarantees of future results or a substitute for personalized financial, investment, tax or legal advice.
Results depend on your inputs, assumptions and the model’s limitations. Calculations may contain errors or omissions, and tax rules, benefits, market conditions and personal circumstances may change. Actual outcomes may differ materially from the projections, including whether your savings will last throughout retirement.
We do not guarantee that projections are accurate, complete, current or suitable for your particular circumstances. Do not rely solely on this application when making retirement, investment, withdrawal or tax decisions. Independently verify important calculations and consult appropriately qualified professionals before acting.
Review the application’s supported model scope and assumptions, and consider multiple scenarios. You are responsible for checking your inputs, independently evaluating the results and deciding whether to act. Use of RetireNotions does not create an investment-advisory, fiduciary or other professional-client relationship with Sage Notions LLC.
Disclaimer of warranties. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Sage Notions LLC provides RetireNotions and its projections “as is” and “as available,” without express or implied warranties, including warranties of accuracy, reliability, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Limitation of liability. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Sage Notions LLC and its members, officers, employees and contractors disclaim liability for losses arising from reliance on the application’s projections, calculations, errors or omissions, including claims based on ordinary negligence. These losses include investment losses, lost income or profits, retirement shortfalls, tax liabilities or penalties, and indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages, even if advised that such losses were possible.
These exclusions do not apply to fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence or any liability or consumer right that applicable law does not permit to be excluded or limited. Each exclusion applies only to the extent legally enforceable; if one provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply to the extent permitted by law.
CURRENT ACCESS
Free, invitation-only beta.
RetireNotions is currently available to invited Beta Testers. Invited households can use workbook-backed assumptions, import and export at no charge. Public trials and paid subscriptions are not currently available on this site.
Invited? Log in →