Retirement & Life Transitions
The big one-time decisions (when to claim Social Security, lump sum or pension, convert or not, downsize or stay) compared side by side, plus the planning tools that feed them.
- Social Security Break-Even CalculatorClaim at 62, 67, or 70? Break-even ages and lifetime totals, charted.
- Social Security COLA CalculatorYour 2.8% raise, and the net check after Medicare takes its share.
- Pension Lump Sum CalculatorCan the lump sum replicate your pension? Depletion curve and hurdle rate.
- Roth Conversion CalculatorPay the tax now or later? Both paths after tax, side by side.
- Retirement Withdrawal CalculatorFind out how long your retirement savings will really last.
- Retirement Spending CalculatorHow much you can spend each year, worked three ways that disagree on purpose.
- RMD CalculatorThis year's required IRA or 401(k) withdrawal, from the current IRS table.
- Inherited IRA RMD CalculatorThis year's RMD, your 10-year deadline, and the year-10 tax bomb.
- Medicare IRMAA CalculatorYour 2026 Part B and D surcharges, and what the nearest cliff costs.
- 401k Catch-Up CalculatorYour 2026 limit, the new Roth mandate, and what catch-ups are worth.
- Estate Tax CalculatorYour estate against the $15M line, and what the portability form is worth.
- CD Ladder CalculatorYour ladder vs all-long vs all-short, with a rung maturing every year.
- I Bond CalculatorThe composite rate built step by step, growth, penalty, and the tax race.
- Longevity Planning CalculatorSSA longevity data turned into a planning age: averages, odds, and honesty.
- Long-Term Care Cost CalculatorWhat care really costs: 2025 medians, projected to when you might need them.
- Downsizing CalculatorSell and downsize or stay? Freed equity, monthly savings, payback year.
- Annuity Payout CalculatorMonthly annuity payments, payout duration, or a lottery annuity schedule.
- Reverse Mortgage CalculatorRough HECM reverse mortgage proceeds from age, home value, and rate.
- S&P 500 Investment CalculatorSee what a past S&P 500 investment would be worth today.
- Capital Gains Tax CalculatorTax on a property sale after basis, selling costs, and the home-sale exclusion.
- TVM CalculatorSolve any of the four TVM variables: FV, PV, payment, or years.
- Superannuation CalculatorProject a super balance: 12% of salary, compounding for decades.
The decisions this collection is built around
Retirement planning is mostly a handful of large, one-time, hard-to-reverse choices surrounded by a lot of smaller reversible ones. These tools are organised around the large ones.
- When to claim Social Security. The break-even calculator compares claiming ages, and the COLA calculator shows what the annual raise looks like after the Medicare premium comes out of it.
- Lump sum or pension. pension lump sum against the guaranteed income it replaces, with annuity payout alongside.
- Whether to convert. Roth conversion, and the IRMAA calculator because a conversion year can raise your Medicare premiums two years later.
- Required withdrawals. RMD for your own accounts and inherited IRA RMD for the ten-year rule, which works very differently.
- Whether the money lasts. retirement withdrawal, longevity planning, and long-term care costs.
- The house. downsizing and reverse mortgage.
The cliffs matter more than the averages
Retirement tax and benefit rules are full of thresholds where one extra dollar of income costs a great deal. Cross an IRMAA line by a dollar and your Medicare premium jumps for the whole year. Take a slightly larger withdrawal and more of your Social Security becomes taxable. These are not smooth curves, they are steps, and the planning value is in knowing where the next step is before you take it.
That is why several of these calculators price the cliff in both directions: what the last dollar cost you, and how much headroom you have before the next line. An effective marginal rate near a threshold can be far higher than your bracket suggests, and it is invisible unless something shows it to you.
Two years is the lag that catches people
Medicare premiums are set from your tax return two years earlier. A Roth conversion or a large capital gain this year shows up in your premium the year after next, long after the decision feels settled. Anyone planning a conversion, a property sale, or an unusually large withdrawal should look at the IRMAA consequence at the same time rather than discovering it later.
These are estimates and educational tools, not tax or financial advice, and the stakes here are high enough that a professional review of a large irreversible move is usually money well spent.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single biggest retirement decision these tools cover?
When to claim Social Security, because it is effectively permanent and it sets a floor under everything else. The break-even calculator compares claiming ages, but read the output as information rather than instruction: claiming early is entirely rational if you need the income now or have reason to expect a shorter horizon.
Why does a Roth conversion affect my Medicare premium?
Because IRMAA surcharges are based on your income from two years earlier. A conversion raises your income this year, which can push you into a higher Medicare premium tier the year after next. Our IRMAA calculator prices that consequence, and the Roth conversion page cross-references it, because the two decisions are genuinely linked and are usually considered separately.
How do inherited IRA rules differ from my own RMDs?
Substantially. Most non-spouse beneficiaries of a 2020 or later death fall under a ten-year rule, and whether annual withdrawals are also required depends on whether the original owner had reached their required beginning date and whether the account is a Roth. The inherited IRA page walks the branches, because the wrong assumption here creates a large tax bill in year ten.
Are these projections reliable?
They are arithmetic on assumptions you supply, and any figure depending on future returns or future rates is a range rather than a prediction. Each page states its assumptions and flags where a default was used. For a large irreversible decision, treat the output as preparation for a conversation with a professional rather than as the decision itself.