Let your plan find a better way to pay for retirement
Which account should you spend first? Should you convert to Roth, and how much? These choices can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over a retirement, and they are hard to test by hand.
The Optimizer tests them for you. It runs hundreds of strategies against your own plan, ranks them, and shows you the one that leaves you best off. Nothing changes until you choose to apply it.
Try the Optimizer
The Optimizer's answer for Chris and Jamie, a made-up couple we use in our examples.
Every strategy is your own plan, with your accounts, income, spending and taxes, run through the same calculation as your Dashboard. Only the way money comes out of your accounts changes.
On a US plan, it mixes three choices:
Then it fine-tunes the best one: the split between your taxable, pre-tax and tax-free accounts, and whether conversion taxes are paid from cash.
The winner against your current plan, and every conversion amount it tried.
The winner comes in plain English, with what it saves in lifetime taxes, what it adds to your portfolio at plan end, and the required withdrawals it avoids.
Before you apply anything, you can see:
Apply it with one click, or leave your plan exactly as it is.
Tell it what to aim for:
A quick scan takes under a minute. A thorough search tries a wider range of amounts and ages.
A strategy only counts as a winner if it beats your plan by a real margin: at least $5,000 and 0.25% of your portfolio at plan end, or making your money last longer.
If nothing clears that bar, it says your plan is already near-optimal, rather than selling you a rounding error.
Buying marketplace health insurance before Medicare? Turn it on in your plan, and the Optimizer keeps your income under the subsidy limit in those years, so a conversion doesn't cost you your premium tax credit.
What the Optimizer tests follows your country's rules:
The Optimizer ranks strategies on one projection, using the returns and inflation you entered. Once you apply a winner, your Chance of Success shows how it holds up through real market history, bad years included.
Your Summary keeps track too: change your plan later and it tells you the result is out of date.
The Optimizer compares strategies under your own assumptions. Real returns, tax law and your life will differ. Applying a strategy replaces your withdrawal and Roth conversion settings, so note them first if you might want them back. Ready Aim Retire is an educational tool, not tax or investment advice.
Pay for retirement in the order that keeps more of your money.
Compare claiming ages and see what each one does to your plan.
Your plan in plain English, and what is worth a look next.
Your plan replayed through real market history since 1871.
Every year of your plan, and the milestones that shape it.
See your financial progress clearly and over time.