What is a FIRE planner?
Most FIRE calculators give you a single number. Useful for five minutes, then you close the tab. A planner is different. It models your entire financial picture over time: assets growing at individual rates, debts being paid down, income streams starting and stopping, expenses inflating, and one-time events like an inheritance or a home purchase.
This planner runs a month-by-month simulation across 30 to 50 years or more. Every month, it compounds each asset at its own rate, applies contributions, accrues debt interest, nets income against expenses, and puts unspent income into the account you pick. The result is a date: the month you can retire, graded three ways, and what happens to your money after it.
The formulas are built in, US taxes included. ProjectionLab and Boldin are paid tools. This planner has no subscription. No account needed. Nothing links to your bank. Your data never leaves your browser. Calculate your FIRE number or get a quick date from the FIRE calculator first, then come back here to plan the path. Prefer to keep your own offline record? The FIRE tracker spreadsheet logs the same monthly progress in Excel or Google Sheets.
Key features
When you can retire, graded three ways
The answer is one line: "Retiring Oct 2042, at 48". Three models grade it side by side. Average returns runs your plan at steady growth. Monte Carlo runs it through 500 simulated markets. The historical backtest runs it through every start year since 1872. Each says whether your money lasts and what you have at retirement, in today's money or future money.
US taxes, in all 50 states
Set Taxes to US and the planner works out your tax for every year of the plan: federal income tax, state income tax for all 50 states and DC, Social Security and Medicare payroll tax, self-employment tax, tax on capital gains, dividends and savings interest, and the 10% early withdrawal penalty. Income is then before tax. Pre-tax 401(k) and HSA contributions come off your taxable wages. Retirement withdrawals are grossed up to cover their own tax. The numbers use 2026 tax law, carried forward with inflation, and match PolicyEngine-US to the dollar on every test household. Outside the US, leave Taxes off and enter take-home pay: the planner works in any country.
Couples, Social Security and the Roth ladder
Add a partner and choose married filing jointly or two single filers. Each account and income line belongs to you, your partner or both. Your partner can retire with you, on a date or at an age. Enter the benefit from your Social Security statement and the age you plan to claim, from 62 to 70: the planner applies the reduction or the delayed credits and the spousal top-up. The Social Security break-even calculator shows when waiting pays off. Pick a Roth conversion strategy (fill the 12% bracket, a fixed amount a year, or stay under the ACA income limit) and see the date and lifetime tax change. The Roth conversion ladder calculator sizes the rungs first. Required minimum distributions start at 73 or 75. Before 65, a Marketplace health plan gets its ACA premium credit.
Every line in your plan
Nine account types: 401(k) and IRA, Roth, HSA, taxable brokerage, high-yield savings, real estate equity, cash, crypto and other, each with its own growth rate. Six income types and eight spending categories, each with a start, an end and a growth rate. Debts with their payoff month. One-time events like an inheritance or a house. If it is money in or out over a period, you can model it.
Stress tests
Six tests: a market crash, lower returns, losing your income, a spending spike, high inflation, and retiring earlier or later than planned. With Social Security in the plan, a seventh cuts benefits to what the trust fund can pay. Tick one and the answer, every model and every chart include it.
Visuals
Path draws your net worth year by year. Money flow shows where one year's money goes, taxes included. Saved vs growth splits what you will have into what you put in and what growth adds. Table lists the plan year by year, with each year's tax and rate when US taxes are on. Taxes charts the tax by year: federal, state and payroll, the drop at retirement and each Roth conversion.
Try these changes, check-ins and plans
"Try these changes" shows what spending 10% less, retiring 3 years later, earning 500 a month more or filling the 12% bracket with Roth conversions does to the date. "Can you coast to retirement?", right under the money left, says whether you could stop saving today. Record a check-in each month and see how far ahead of or behind your plan you are. Keep up to 5 plans and compare them in one table. Share a plan as a link, or export it as a CSV.
How to get started
- Type four numbers. Your age, invested savings, monthly spending and monthly income. In the US? Tick "US taxes" and enter income before tax. The answer appears at once: the earliest year you could retire.
- Read the answer. Pick a model card to see its numbers. The tabs under it show the path, where the money goes and the year-by-year table. Tick a stress test to see what a crash or a lost job does to the date.
- Make the plan yours. Add your real accounts, debts, income and spending, each line in its own form. With US taxes on, add your state and a partner or dependents first.
- Check in. Once a month, record your balances in Check-ins. The newest one says how far ahead of or behind your plan you are.
For every step with screenshots, read How to use the Fire Planner. For the formulas, see How projections work.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Everything you enter stays in your browser's localStorage. No account needed; without one we don't store your numbers anywhere and can't see them. A free account is optional: it keeps the plans you save under your email so they open on any device, and deleting the account erases them.
The site does use analytics. Cloudflare Web Analytics runs on every visit and sets no cookies. Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and the Reddit Pixel (which measures our Reddit ads) also run. In the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland, Google Analytics sets no cookies and Clarity and the Reddit Pixel don't load until you accept the cookie banner. The Reddit Pixel never loads on a link that carries your numbers. Details in the privacy policy.
Projections use month-by-month compounding with individual growth rates per asset, per-debt interest accrual, and time-bound income and expense modeling. They're as accurate as your inputs and assumptions. Stress tests show what a market crash, lower returns or an inflation spike does to your plan.
Yes, up to 5 plans. The plan menu in the top bar shows your plan's name ("My plan" at first). Use it to duplicate your plan or start a new one from its numbers, change what you want to test (retire at 50 instead of 55, a career change, a lower savings rate) and switch back and forth. Each plan keeps its own assets, debts, income, expenses, settings and check-ins. Compare plans puts them in one table: when each one retires, whether the money lasts on average returns, how many Monte Carlo simulations and historical start years it lasts in, and net worth at retirement. All plans are stored in this browser, with no account, so they don't follow you to another device. File ▸ Export this plan (CSV) backs up the plan you have open.
Nine account types: Retirement account (401(k), IRA, 403(b)), Roth (Roth IRA, Roth 401(k)), HSA, Taxable brokerage, High-yield savings, Real estate equity, Cash, Crypto and Other. Each has a default growth rate you can override. Debts take a balance, an interest rate and a monthly payment.
Yes. File ▸ Export this plan (CSV) downloads the plan you have open: your check-ins as rows a spreadsheet reads, and a backup of the whole plan. File ▸ Import plan (CSV)… reads it back on another device or browser, in place of a plan or as a new one. Your plans live only in this browser, so export now and then as a backup.
Monte Carlo simulation tests your retirement plan against hundreds or thousands of simulated markets. Each simulation draws a different return every year: some years up 20%, some down 15%. The planner runs 500 simulations by default (100 to 5,000) and counts the ones where your money lasts to your "Money must last until" age: "money lasts in 462 of 500 simulations". It also shows how the best and worst 10% of simulations end.
Yes, for the US. Set Taxes to US in the You section (or tick "US taxes" in the quick-start). The planner then computes federal income tax, state income tax, Social Security and Medicare payroll tax, self-employment tax, tax on capital gains, qualified dividends and savings interest, the 3.8% net investment income tax and the 10% early withdrawal penalty, for every year of the plan. Each month withholds at last year's rate and December settles the exact tax. Outside the US, leave Taxes off: enter take-home pay, and add tax as a spending line if you pay it separately.
All 50 states and DC, with each state's 2026 brackets, deductions or exemptions, and its own rules for Social Security, pensions and retirement withdrawals (Pennsylvania and Illinois don't tax them, for example). The state is filled in from where you are; change it in the State row. "Federal only" leaves state tax out. City and county income taxes are not included.
Yes. With US taxes on, add a partner in the You section. Married couples file jointly by default; untick Married and the planner files two single returns, splitting joint income and accounts in half. Each account and income line is yours, your partner's or joint. Your partner can retire with you, on a date of their own, or at an age. Dependents count for the child tax credit until 17 and for your ACA household.
With US taxes on, a Social Security line takes the monthly benefit at full retirement age from your SSA statement and the age you claim, from 62 to 70. The planner reduces the benefit for an early claim, adds the delayed credits up to 70, adds a spousal top-up from your partner's benefit, and grows it with inflation. Without a statement figure it estimates the benefit from your salary history, and shows what retiring early costs you at 67. Up to 85% of the benefit is taxed, by the federal rule. A stress test cuts benefits to what the trust fund can pay from 2033.
Yes. In the Taxes section, Roth conversions converts money from your traditional accounts to your Roth each December, from your first retired year until the age you set: up to the top of the 10, 12, 22 or 24% bracket, a fixed amount a year, or up to the ACA income limit. Each conversion is taxed that year and can come out penalty-free after five years. The Taxes tab marks every conversion. "Try these changes" shows what filling the 12% bracket does to your date and your lifetime tax.
Yes, before 65. Mark a healthcare line as a Marketplace plan at full price. The planner takes that amount as your benchmark premium and subtracts the premium tax credit your income allows each year, for your household size. Your Roth conversions and withdrawals change that income, so they change the credit. Medicare premiums after 65 stay your own healthcare line.
Yes. RMDs start at 73, or 75 if you were born in 1960 or later, using the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. The planner takes each year's RMD from your traditional accounts in December, taxes it, and puts what is left in the account your savings go to.
No. The tax figures are estimates from 2026 US tax law, carried forward with inflation, for planning when you can retire. They leave out itemized deductions, AMT, local income tax and some credits, and tax law changes. A fee-only advisor or a tax professional can check your plan's taxes and timing. The advisor directory lists fee-only advisors who work with early retirees.
Historical backtesting runs your exact financial plan through every start year since 1872, using actual S&P 500 returns from the Shiller dataset. The result counts the start years your money lasts in, such as "money lasts in 82 of 96 start years". Those years include starts just before the Great Depression, 1970s stagflation and the 2008 financial crisis.