Welcome to the Retirement Figures help center. This is the place to find answers about how the planner works, what each input means, and how to interpret the results it produces.

How this help center is organized

The left-side tree groups articles into ten sections:

• Getting Started - this page, plus a step-by-step guide to creating your first plan and the most common setup mistakes to avoid.
• Setting Up Your Plan - one article per input area: Profile, Plan assumptions, Accounts, Roth Strategy, QCDs, Income, Social Security, Pensions, Expenses, Debts, Real estate, Windfalls, Medicare, ACA, Long-term care, Milestones & Events. If you're filling something in and not sure what a field means, start here.
• Managing multiple plans - create multiple plans to model alternative strategies (retire at 62 vs 67, different Roth approaches, etc), with tools to duplicate a baseline, set a Main plan, archive ones you've outgrown, and use Plan Compare to see exactly which inputs differ between two plans field by field.
• Taxes - how the engine handles federal and state income tax, Roth conversions, RMDs, and IRMAA.
• How the Engine Works - the behaviors that drive every simulation: portfolio withdrawal order, what happens to unspent earnings, spending guardrails, inflation, and the year-by-year accounting model.
• Understanding Your Results - how to read the dashboard, what the success rate means, what the confidence bands tell you, and why your numbers might differ from another tool's.
• What-Ifs and Optimization - the explorer and optimizer tools that let you compare strategies without changing your saved plan.
• Reports and AI Review - the printable Plan Report and the AI Review Export.
• Guides - cross-cutting walkthroughs that don't fit inside one feature area, like "Retiring before 65."
• Your Data, Privacy, and Plus - your storage options (on your device with no account, or in the cloud with an account), exporting and importing backups, clearing your data, and Plus details.

Where to start

No sign-up required - you can start planning instantly, and your work is saved right here in your browser. A free account is optional and only needed to sync across devices. If you're new, the most useful first reads are:

• Create your first plan - a suggested order for filling everything in.
• Common setup mistakes - ten pitfalls that bite first-time plans hardest.
• Monte Carlo simulations - what the success rate and confidence bands actually mean.
• Portfolio withdrawals - the order accounts are drawn in when expenses exceed income.

How to use this page

• Search - the box above the tree searches every article's title, body, tags, and section name. Type a phrase and matching articles replace the tree; click one to open it.
• Tree - click a section to expand or collapse it; click an article to open it on the right. The current article stays highlighted.
• Related articles - most articles list a few cross-links at the bottom for closely connected topics.
• Direct links - every article has a stable URL (e.g. /help?article=portfolio-withdrawals) you can bookmark or share.

A note on Free vs Plus

Some features described in these articles - including the What-If Explorer, Plan Optimizer (and its Roth, ACA, and IRMAA-aware variants), Real Estate, multiple plans, and the AI Review Export - require a Plus subscription.