Example plan · Make your money last
Make your money last longer
Diane and Frank, 57 and 55, are retiring at 60 on a fixed budget and Social Security at full retirement age — a plan with almost no margin for a bad market. Delaying Social Security to 70 and spending with guardrails instead turns it into a plan built to hold up.
Worst-case (1-in-10) net worth: Your plan vs Optimized plan
Money lasts in 98% of markets — vs 35%
This is the worst-case (1-in-10, 10th-percentile) market path from 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations — your plan's fixed spending craters it, while the optimized plan's flexible ("guardrail") spending and delayed Social Security keep it afloat. Illustrative figures from the NestVida engine.
About this plan
- Who
- Diane & Frank
- Filing status
- Married filing jointly
- Current ages
- 57 & 55
- Retire at
- 60
- Plan through age
- 95
- Taxable / brokerage
- $150,000
- Traditional (pre-tax)
- $900,000
- Roth
- $100,000
- Monthly spending goal
- $5,000/mo
- Social Security (monthly)
- $2,400 + $1,600
At a glance
Lower tax and higher net worth are better. Success = share of 1,000 Monte Carlo market paths the plan survives.
Before vs after
Your plan claims Social Security at full retirement age and spends a fixed amount. The Optimized plan delays Social Security to 70 and spends with guardrails that flex with the markets — everything else is identical.
| Metric | Your plan | Optimized plan |
|---|---|---|
| Probability of success | 35% | 98% |
| Money lasts to age | Lasts to 95 | Lasts to 95 |
| Lifetime taxes | $142,068 | $117,538 |
| Lifetime taxes saved | — | $24,530 |
| Final net worth (after-tax) | $261,996 | $1,012,409 |
| Lifetime Social Security | $1,547,520 | $1,547,520 |
What changed and why
- •Delaying Social Security to 70 and spending with guardrails instead of a fixed amount raise Monte Carlo success from 35% to 98% across 1,000 randomized market simulations.
- •In the worst 10% of simulated markets, your plan runs out of money around age 79; the optimized plan stays solvent all the way through age 95.
- •Final after-tax net worth ends near $1,012,409 versus $261,996 for your plan.
How to get there
The specific moves behind this result — the same ones you'd make in the planner with your own numbers.
- 1Retire at 60 with a plan built to flex, not just a fixed budget.
- 2Delay Social Security to 70 to lock in a permanently larger, inflation-protected benefit that covers more of your spending no matter how markets perform.
- 3Keep spending flexible with guardrails: cut planned spending by 10% if withdrawals run more than 20% above plan, and take a 10% raise when they run well below plan.
- 4Draw from taxable savings first, then pre-tax, then Roth — the order that keeps lifetime tax lowest for these numbers.
- 5Re-check yearly and adjust — do this in the planner with your own numbers.
Make it yours
These are starting numbers. Load this plan into the live app and swap in your own balances, spending, and Social Security — everything recalculates instantly, and nothing leaves your browser.