Quick Start
Pasture runs a year-by-year simulation of your finances from today through your chosen end age. Every number flows from your inputs — accounts, ages, spending, returns, and tax filing status.
- Enter account balances in Starting Balances.
- Set ages in Your Profile — current age, retirement age, and plan end age.
- Configure retirement spending in Retirement Smile.
- Pick a return sequence in Market Assumptions. Historical is the most honest single-sequence test.
- Click Run Scenario — results appear on the Overview tab.
- Click Compare to see all four return sequences side by side.
- Click Monte Carlo for a probabilistic success rate across 1,000 randomized futures.
The Plan Success tile automatically runs 300 Monte Carlo simulations in the background after every Run Scenario and gives you an instant probability read without opening the Monte Carlo tab.
Your Inputs
Account Balances
Add an account for each balance you hold and choose its type. You can add multiple accounts of the same type, name them, and assign each to you or your spouse. Non-zero accounts display by default — click Show all accounts to reveal the full list.
| Account | Tax treatment | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| IRA / 401K / 403b | Tax-deferred | Withdrawals taxed as ordinary income. Subject to RMDs from age 75 (SECURE 2.0, for those born in 1960 or later). IRA and 401K have independent RMD requirements under the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. |
| Roth IRA / Roth 401K | Tax-free | Growth and qualified withdrawals tax-free. No RMDs during your lifetime. |
| HSA | Triple tax-advantaged | Pre-tax contributions, tax-free growth, tax-free medical withdrawals. Medicare premiums (Part B + D + IRMAA) auto-debited from age 65. |
| Taxable Brokerage | Capital gains | Only realized gains are taxed (LTCG + 3.8% NIIT). Enter a cost basis so gains compute correctly — left blank, basis defaults to the full balance (no embedded gain). See Account Types. |
Account Types
Every account you add has a type that sets its tax treatment and whether RMDs apply. Add as many as you like — several IRAs, a spouse’s 401(k), multiple taxable accounts — and assign each to you or your spouse.
| Type | Tax treatment | RMDs? |
|---|---|---|
| Tax-Deferred | Withdrawals as ordinary income | Yes — own RMD via IRS Uniform Lifetime Table |
| Roth | Tax-free growth and withdrawal | No |
| Taxable Brokerage | LTCG on realized gains + 3.8% NIIT above $250K AGI (MFJ) | No |
| 529 Plan | Tax-free growth. Excluded from Legacy metrics and withdrawal strategy | No |
Ages & Timeline
Current age starts the simulation. Retirement age is when contributions stop, spending begins drawing from accounts, and SS / pension activate. End age is how far the simulation runs (default 90).
Pension
Enter monthly amount, start age, COLA, and taxability. Taxable pensions enter gross income subject to federal + state tax with applicable state retirement exemptions. Spouse pensions are configured in the Spouse section.
Spouse / Partner
Add a spouse with their own ages, SS benefit, and pension. Pasture runs a joint simulation — when one partner’s end age is reached, spending adjusts to the survivor spending percentage and SS adjusts to the higher of the two benefits. Spouse-owned extra accounts have their own RMDs.
Income & Spending Streams
Beyond Social Security and pensions, you can add any number of income streams — a salary, a side business, rental income, an annuity, or part-time work in early retirement. Each stream has a start and end age, an annual amount, a growth rate, and an owner (you or your spouse).
Enter the amount in today’s dollars, like every other figure in Pasture. A stream that starts later grows with inflation until it begins (spending ranges with your spending growth), then at its own growth rate.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Type — W2 / Self-employed / Other | W2 applies employee FICA (7.65%). Self-employed applies the full self-employment tax (15.3% — both halves of Social Security up to the wage base, plus Medicare). Other (rental, annuity, pension-like) is taxed as income but carries no payroll tax. |
| Phase — pre / post / both | Whether the stream is active before retirement, after, or throughout. A stream counts in any year its age window is active, measured against that owner’s age — so a still-working spouse’s income is recognized even after you’ve retired. |
| Owner | Assign to you or your spouse; each earner’s FICA is computed separately. |
Spending streams work the same way for recurring costs — a mortgage that ends at a set age, supporting a family member, a membership — layered on top of your Retirement Smile spending for the ages you specify.
Healthcare & ACA Subsidies
Between retirement and Medicare at 65, many retirees buy coverage on the ACA marketplace, where premiums are offset by income-based subsidies. With ACA enabled, Pasture estimates the premium tax credit from your modeled income and household size each year, so you can see the trade-off between Roth conversions (which raise income) and the subsidy (which shrinks as income rises).
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Household size | Used with the Federal Poverty Level to size the subsidy; the FPL is grown ~3%/yr for future years. |
| Subsidy basis | Your modeled income sets the expected contribution percentage; the credit is the gap between the benchmark premium and that contribution. |
From age 65, ACA ends and Medicare begins — see IRMAA & Medicare.
Retirement Smile Spending
Research shows actual retirement spending follows a “smile” shape — higher early (travel, activities), declining in the middle, rising again late for healthcare. Pasture models four phases.
Each phase has its own base spending amount and grows at the spending growth rate (default 2%/year). Transition ages are fully adjustable — each spending slider label shows the exact start age from your current settings. When one spouse passes, spending adjusts to the survivor spending percentage (default 75%).
Market Returns
Choose how investment returns are modeled. Each mode uses a pre-built sequence of annual returns for your simulation window. The Market Assumption tile shows the CAGR and average return for the exact slice your plan uses — not the full sequence.
Asset Allocation & Glide Path
The return sequences above describe your equity returns. Asset allocation controls how much of your portfolio is in equities vs. bonds and how that mix shifts over time.
- Stock % — the equity share at the start and end of your plan. Leave both at 100% for all-equity, or glide from, say, 90% down to 50% with age.
- Glide path — Pasture linearly blends from your start allocation to your end allocation between the ages you set, so the equity share steps down gradually rather than all at once.
- Bond return — the assumed annual return on the bond portion (default 4.5%). Each year’s blended return is the equity return weighted by stock %, plus the bond return weighted by the remainder.
Whenever your allocation is anything other than 100% equities, this blended sequence drives the simulation — a more conservative mix lowers both expected growth and volatility, reflected in the Market Assumption tile and the Monte Carlo bands.
Tax & Filing Status
Select filing status and state. Pasture applies 2026 federal brackets (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32) and standard deduction automatically, plus current state income tax for all 50 states and D.C.
Federal Brackets — MFJ (2026)
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Standard Deduction (2026)
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Key State Exemptions
IL, MS, PA: all retirement income exempt. NJ: up to $100K exempt if income ≤ $150K and age ≥ 62. NY: up to $20K IRA/pension exempt at 59½. Applied automatically.
The Tax Bracket Ceiling in Roth Conversions sets which bracket to fill during optimization. Pre-retirement Income ensures conversion tax is calculated at the correct marginal rate for working-age users.
Filing status and state live under Your situation → Taxes in the sidebar. Planning to relocate? That is a separate control — see Moving in Retirement below.
Moving in Retirement
Under Optimization → Moving you can name a state you plan to move to and the age you expect to move. Pasture then applies your home state’s tax up to that age and the destination state’s from that age on — brackets, retirement-income exemptions, standard deduction and ACA benchmark premiums all follow you.
Both fields are needed: a destination with no age, or an age with no destination, models no move at all. The change lands on a birthday boundary — Pasture works in whole projection years, so a mid-year move is modelled as happening at the start of that year.
The timing is usually less urgent than people expect, and the reason is worth knowing: early retirement years are often close to state-tax-free anyway, because your taxable income is deliberately low while you bridge to Medicare and fill brackets with Roth conversions. The bill arrives when Social Security and RMDs do. To see where your own deadline falls, run the Move Timing sensitivity — see Compare Scenarios.
Withdrawal Strategy
Controls which accounts are drawn each year to fund spending. The engine solves withdrawals iteratively to find the exact draw that covers your after-tax spending need.
For most retirees with significant IRA balances, Tax-Bracket Filling combined with Roth conversions produces the best lifetime tax outcome.
Roth Conversions
When enabled, converts IRA funds to Roth each year up to your bracket ceiling. Conversion tax is the actual marginal cost — the tax difference with vs. without the conversion — not a flat estimate. A custom schedule lets you specify exact amounts by age.
HSA Withdrawals
Set a withdrawal schedule by age for tax-free medical reimbursements. From age 65, Medicare premiums (Part B + D + IRMAA) are automatically debited from HSA before any scheduled withdrawals. Whatever balance remains is available for your schedule.
Milestones & Expenses
Milestones label an age on your charts and in the Year-by-Year table — retiring, a move, a grandchild’s wedding. A plain milestone changes nothing in the plan. Each age holds one plain milestone; a debt payoff (below) may share an age with one, and the chart shows both labels.
One-time expenses are large planned costs at a specific age (car, renovation, college support), drawn from an account you choose and taken in addition to normal annual spending that year. The amount is entered in today’s dollars and grows with spending to the year it happens. Use this to model 529 plan distributions.
Repeating expenses — choose Repeats instead of Once and enter how often and how many times, rather than adding each year by hand. Four years of college from 48 is every 1 year, 4 times; a car every seven years is every 7 years, 5 times; a vacation every four years is every 4 years, 6 times. The overlay lists the ages it will charge as you type, and notes any that fall after your plan ends. The amount is per occurrence, and each occurrence grows with spending from its own year. The sidebar shows one row per repeating expense (“Every 4 yrs · 66–86 · ×6”), and editing it changes every occurrence at once. Don’t use Repeats for a loan payment you have already counted in your spending — add a debt payoff milestone instead.
Debt paid off — Pasture does not track debt: no balance, no interest rate, no schedule. It assumes a loan payment is part of the spending you set for each phase. What a flat phase level gets wrong is the year the loan ends, so add a milestone at the payoff age, switch on This is a debt payoff, and enter the monthly payment. Your payoff date is on your lender’s statement.
- Keep the payment in every phase that starts before the payoff age. The overlay names those phases for you.
- From the payoff age, the payment comes out of that phase’s spending for the rest of the phase. Phases that start after it are left exactly as you set them, so a loan paid off in your Early years never lowers your Care years. A mortgage paid off at 73 with Middle years running 70–75 lowers spending only from 73 to 75.
- Until payoff, the payment is held at its fixed amount instead of growing with inflation like the rest of your spending — a $2,000 payment is $2,000 every month.
- A loan paid off before you retire changes nothing — leave it out of your retirement spending.
- If a spouse dies, the survivor spending percentage reduces the rest of your spending but not the payment.
The sidebar shows a payoff as −$2,000/mo, the Retirement Smile overlay notes which phase it lowers, the Year-by-Year table marks the payoff year with −debt, and the Plan OK tooltip shows the fixed payments inside each year’s spending. Like every figure in the app, the tag and tooltip follow Display Dollars: in Real mode a fixed payment reads smaller the further out it is, because $24,000 in a future year buys less than $24,000 today. The calculation itself always uses the exact payment. One thing to know: Close the gap’s Spend Less and the spending sensitivities scale each phase’s whole level, including a payment you left inside it.
Overview Tab
The main results view — it opens with your plan’s answer (its success rate, what that means, and one next step; see Plan Success Rate), then the metric tiles and a carousel of charts (some appear only when relevant — e.g. Pre-Retirement Cash Flow shows when pre-retirement planning is on). Everything updates when you click Run Scenario.
Metric Tiles
| Tile | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Plan Success | 300-simulation background Monte Carlo. Ring arc fills proportionally — green ≥83% (on track), orange 70–82% (may need adjustment), red <70% (needs attention). |
| Legacy (two tiles) | Total spendable portfolio value ten years before your plan ends and in its final year, in your Real/Nominal setting, with the after-heirs'-tax figure beneath each. Excludes 529 balances. |
| Lifetime Tax | Total federal + state tax across all retirement years. Pill shows effective lifetime rate. |
| Market Assumption | Selected return mode name, CAGR, and average return for the exact slice your plan uses. Updates live when you change ages or return mode. |
| Roth Conversions | Total dollars converted from IRA to Roth over the full plan. |
Toggle Real / Nominal to switch all values between today’s purchasing power (deflated at your inflation setting, default 2.5%) and future nominal dollars.
Plan Success Rate
After each Run Scenario, Pasture runs 300 Monte Carlo simulations in the background using the mean that corresponds to your selected return mode — not the Monte Carlo tab slider. This means the quick rate is always consistent with your chosen scenario, even after running a full Monte Carlo with different settings.
The rate is read in three bands, used for its colour everywhere it appears — the tile and its ring, the answer at the top of the Overview, the Monte Carlo tab, the Sensitivity column, the Compare table and Close the gap’s results. At the top of the Overview the green band is split in two, and the buttons beside the answer offer the steps that fit:
| Success rate | Status | Next step offered |
|---|---|---|
| 90% and above | On track (green) | See what affects this — runs the Sensitivity sweep for whichever variable is selected. |
| 83–89% | On track (green) | Compare spending levels — runs the Early years spending sweep, with a note that spending a little less in the early years could make the plan stronger. |
| 70–82% | May need adjustment (orange) | Show me how to close the gap — see below — and Try a later retirement age, which runs the Retirement Age sweep. If you retire within two years, the second button runs the spending sweep instead, since the only ages left to compare are later ones. |
| Below 70% | Needs attention (red) | The same two buttons. |
The explanation under the rate says roughly when savings run short in the weaker outcomes, and how many years before your plan ends. Because 300 simulations vary by a point or two between runs, a plan close to a boundary can move between bands when re-run.
Close the gap
When your success rate is below 83% (Needs attention or May need adjustment), a 🎯 Close the gap button appears on the Plan Success tile, on the line that normally shows the simulation count, and Show me how to close the gap leads the buttons beside the answer at the top of the Overview. Its table lists only the targets above your current rate. It answers: what is the smallest change that gets my plan back on track? Two adjustment modes:
| Mode | What it models |
|---|---|
| 💰 Save More | Additional annual pre-retirement savings, spread across your accounts — tax-advantaged (tax-deferred & Roth) filled up to each annual limit first, then any taxable brokerage. |
| ✂️ Spend Less | Reduces the four Retirement Smile phases, weighted toward the early years — that is where the discretionary money is. The early years absorb the headline cut in full, and each later phase progressively less, so the care years (care, health and housing, not travel) are largely protected. The one limit: no phase is protected so far that it ends up outspending a phase your plan started above it. |
The results table has three rows, one per band edge: 70% (out of Needs attention), 83% (on track) and 90%. Each level is run through its own Monte Carlo sweep, so the table shows the success rate you’d actually reach at each step — pick a row and Apply to write that change into your inputs. A row reads not achievable when even the largest change tested falls short.
Legacy Chart — Account Breakdown
A stacked area chart of total portfolio value by age, broken down by account type. See IRA shrinking under RMDs and withdrawals, Roth growing tax-free, 401K rolling down, HSA drawn for medical expenses. Hover any point for exact balances.
Annual Income vs Spending
After-tax income vs. annual spending year by year. Shortfall years are marked with triangle markers — these draw from account balances rather than income. One-time expenses appear as orange dots.
Tax Burden Over Time
Federal and state tax stacked by year, effective rate overlaid as a line. Spot conversion opportunity years — where your effective rate dips below your expected future rate, typically between retirement and Social Security start.
Annual Returns Chart
The year-by-year return sequence your plan uses — green bars positive, red negative, pre-retirement years slightly dimmed. Y-axis auto-scales to your sequence slice range. A dashed vertical line marks retirement age. Re-renders whenever you change return mode, ages, or run a new scenario.
Pre-Retirement Cash Flow
For working years, this chart stacks your and your spouse’s gross W2 income and overlays two lines: Net After Tax (income minus federal, state, and FICA) and Spending. The gap between the income stack and the Net line is what goes to tax; the gap between Net and Spending is your annual surplus — money available to save or convert before retirement. Appears only when pre-retirement planning is on.
Medicare Costs
From age 65, total Medicare cost by year — Part B + Part D base premiums plus any IRMAA surcharge driven by your AGI from two years prior. Costs grow at ~5.5% healthcare inflation. Watch for surcharge jumps that trace back to large withdrawals or conversions two years earlier.
Social Security Breakeven
Cumulative lifetime benefits by claim age, so you can see at what age delaying (e.g. to 70) overtakes claiming early (e.g. at 62). The crossover is your breakeven — living past it favors delaying. Helps frame the claim-age decision alongside its effect on portfolio longevity.
Money Flow
A year-by-year view of gross income, the tax drag taken out of it, and what you keep — a quick read on how much of each year’s income survives federal, state, and FICA before funding spending.
Year-by-Year Detail Table
Every year of the simulation as a row: age, calendar year, account balances, withdrawals by type, SS, pension, Roth conversion, federal + state tax, effective rate, and Plan OK status.
| Plan OK Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| OK ✓ | Income and withdrawals exactly cover spending. |
| OK +$X | Covered with money left over — the surplus moves to your brokerage. Notable surpluses (≥$10K) show in amber with an arrow. |
| SHORT −$X | Income and withdrawals don’t fully cover spending; the gap is shown. A variant flags when the gap is an unfunded ACA premium (pre-Medicare years only tap HSA, cash, and savings for premiums — never tax-deferred or Roth). |
Hover the Plan OK cell for a full year breakdown: every income source, taxes, net spendable, spending, ACA premium funding, and the final surplus or shortfall — plus any one-time expenses that year. In Real mode, the cell, tooltip, and every column share the same today’s-dollars lens.
Use the column group buttons to show/hide Balances, Income, Tax, Withdrawals, etc. The full table exports to PDF.
Compare Scenarios
Click Compare to run Conservative, Moderate, Optimistic, and Historical simultaneously. The summary table shows legacy 15 and 10 years before the plan ends and at plan end, Lifetime Tax, Tax%, Conversions, and Conv Tax Savings — how much your conversion strategy saved vs. the no-conversion alternative for each sequence.
Switch to My Scenarios to compare your own named saved scenarios side by side, or Sensitivity to stress one variable at a time across a range of values and see how each step moves the outcome. Available variables: retirement age, early years spending, total retirement spending, SS claim age, plan end age, inflation, stock allocation, withdrawal strategy, and move timing.
Spending and Total Spend answer different questions. Spending moves only your Early years level, in 10% steps. Total Spend scales all four Retirement Smile phases together, from 30% less to 20% more, so the shape of your curve stays the same at every step; its rows read −10%, As planned, +10%.
Move Timing asks when a relocation starts paying. Pick a destination state in the panel — it is asked there rather than read from your plan, so the sweep never changes what you have saved, and you can ask the question without committing to a move. The rows are your plan’s own milestones (never move, retirement, SS claim, the year before RMDs, RMD start, five years later) rather than an even spread, because state tax tends to stay flat and then jump: the row where the number starts climbing is your deadline.
Every sensitivity row also shows Lifetime Tax beside legacy at plan end. Read both — a variable can look almost flat in legacy terms while moving lifetime tax by a third, because tax paid late in the plan has had less time to compound into the balance. Green means less tax, the opposite direction to the legacy columns.
Monte Carlo Simulation
Runs 1,000 randomized return sequences through your plan and reports what percentage funded every retirement year — a simulation fails in the first year its spending cannot be met, even if money it cannot reach yet (an IRA before 59½) is still there. Answers: across a wide range of possible futures, how often does my plan work?
| Method | When used | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Block Bootstrap | Historical mode | Resamples real S&P 500 history in multi-year blocks, preserving the clustering of bear markets and multi-year recoveries. |
| Normal Distribution | All other modes | Generates random returns from a normal distribution using the mean and standard deviation set on the Monte Carlo tab. Standard deviation is auto-estimated from the selected mean. |
Results show ruin probability, median legacy at plan end, and 10th/90th percentile bands. The success rate is coloured with the same bands as the Plan Success tile: green at 83% and above, orange 70–82%, red below 70%. A wide band means high uncertainty; narrow means more predictable outcomes.
Roth Conversion Optimizer
Finds the conversion schedule that maximizes your after-tax legacy — the estate your heirs actually keep, with inherited tax-deferred balances discounted by an assumed heir tax rate and every dollar of upfront conversion tax counted against the benefit. A conversion only makes the schedule if it genuinely earns more than it costs; minimizing lifetime tax alone would over-convert.
Set the bracket ceiling (which federal bracket to fill, per your filing status) and a max single-year conversion, then run. The optimizer sweeps each candidate year’s amounts with a full simulation per candidate, sizing every year’s cap from that year’s real income — SS, RMDs, and withdrawals already filling the bracket shrink the room.
| Which years does it consider? | Window |
|---|---|
| Roth conversions toggle OFF | The full window automatically — every year from today through the last year before RMDs begin. One click answers “what’s the best possible strategy?” |
| Toggle ON, “Continue in Retirement” unchecked | Pre-retirement years only — your checkbox scoping is respected. The results panel points at the checkbox if retirement years went unevaluated. |
| Toggle ON + “Continue in Retirement” | Through the last clean year before RMDs begin. |
The results table shows, per year: the conversion amount, its actual marginal tax cost, the ACA subsidy given up that year (a conversion raises MAGI — red if it crosses the 400% FPL cliff), and the IRMAA surcharge it triggers two years later.
Key Concepts
Sequence of Returns Risk
Even if average returns over 30 years are 7%, the order matters enormously in retirement. A severe bear market in your first few years — when your portfolio is largest and you’re withdrawing — can permanently impair a plan that would have survived with the same average in a different order. Flat-return calculators ignore this entirely.
The gap between your arithmetic average return and CAGR (shown in the Market Assumption tile) is the volatility drag — the price you pay for sequence risk.
Real vs Nominal Dollars
Nominal: future amounts as they’ll appear on statements. Real: adjusted into today’s purchasing power using your inflation setting (default 2.5%). At 2.5%, $1M nominal in 20 years ≈ $610K in today’s dollars. Use Real when comparing values at different ages; Nominal for actual account balances.
Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
The IRS requires annual withdrawals from all tax-deferred accounts — IRA, 401K, 403b, and any extra tax-deferred accounts. Pasture models RMDs starting at age 75 (the SECURE 2.0 age for those born in 1960 or later) and applies the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table III divisors independently to each account. If spending needs are covered, RMDs still occur — they increase taxable income and may trigger higher IRMAA surcharges two years later.
Social Security Taxability
The IRS uses provisional income (other AGI + 50% of SS benefit) to determine the taxable fraction. Below $32K (MFJ) no SS is taxable; $32K–$44K up to 50% is taxable; above $44K up to 85% is taxable — the maximum. Single/HOH thresholds: $25K and $34K. These thresholds haven’t been inflation-adjusted since 1983/1993.
Because SS taxability and withdrawal amounts are co-dependent, Pasture solves them iteratively — typically 3–5 iterations per year — for accurate results rather than a single-pass estimate that causes year-to-year income oscillation.
IRMAA & Medicare Costs
From age 65, Medicare Part B + Part D premiums are debited from your HSA automatically. Base cost is $2,903/year (2026). IRMAA surcharges apply when your AGI two years prior exceeds thresholds — large IRA withdrawals or Roth conversions today affect Medicare cost in two years.
| 2-Year Prior AGI (MFJ) | Annual Medicare Cost | Surcharge |
|---|---|---|
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| 2-Year Prior AGI (Single) | Annual Medicare Cost | Surcharge |
|---|---|---|
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Medicare costs grow at ~5.5% healthcare inflation annually from 2026, the same for everyone enrolled that year. Pasture tracks the two-year AGI lookback and healthcare COLA for every simulation year.
Historical Return Sequence
In Historical mode, Pasture uses the most recent N years of actual S&P 500 annual returns, where N is your simulation length. A 40-year plan uses the most recent 40 years of real market data, including all major disruptions in that window. This is the most honest single-sequence test — real return ordering at real magnitudes.
529 Plans and Legacy
529 accounts are excluded from Legacy metric tiles and Compare summaries — earmarked funds aren’t freely spendable retirement wealth. They appear in the Legacy chart as a separate area. To model distributions, add a one-time expense assigned to that account at the age you plan to distribute — or a repeating one, every 1 year for each year of school.
Keeping Your Plan Current
A plan is anchored to the moment its balances were true. Pasture stores that date with the scenario and projects forward from it — which is why a plan built last March keeps giving the same answer today instead of quietly drifting.
Two things go out of date, and they are separate:
- The projection year. Once the calendar passes into a new year, your plan is still projecting from a year that is over, against tax brackets that have moved.
- The balances. Markets did not do exactly what the plan assumed. After about six months, the starting figures are worth revisiting whatever the calendar says.
When either applies, an amber note appears at the top of the page and a badge beside the scenario name. Both lead to Re-anchor.
Re-anchoring
The overlay asks for one thing: today’s balance for each account. That is the whole point — the reason to re-anchor is that real markets diverged from the assumption, so pre-filling the projected figure would erase exactly the difference you opened it to record. Each row offers the balance already in the plan, and where the projection covers today, the figure your plan expects — either as a one-click fill if nothing has changed.
Ages are stated, not asked. Pasture does not store your birthday, so it tells you what it is about to do (“you advance from 55 to 56”) and moves only the two ages that describe today — yours and your spouse’s. Retirement age, claiming age and every other target stays exactly where you set it. Crossing a year boundary is what advances them; refreshing balances within the same year does not.
In the scenario list
Each saved scenario shows the date it is anchored to, not the date you last saved it — a plan edited today can still be projecting from balances you confirmed months ago, so the save date is the wrong thing to judge. A stale row is marked and carries a ↻ button that loads the plan and opens the re-anchor overlay. It never re-dates a plan from the list, because from there you cannot see the balances, and a plan that looks refreshed without being checked is worse than one that admits it is old.
Saving Scenarios
Click ⊞ Scenarios in the header to open the scenario manager:
- Save as new — save current inputs under a name.
- Update — overwrite the currently loaded scenario.
- Load — restore any saved scenario.
- Set as default — load automatically on next sign-in.
- Export PDF — download a formatted summary of results.
- Share — generate a shareable link or send by email.
Account Settings
Open your profile from the header to manage your account. Three actions are available:
- Change password — a two-step flow: confirm your current password, then enter the 6-digit code emailed to you along with your new password (minimum 8 characters).
- Promo code — redeem a code to unlock or extend a plan tier. Timed codes show their expiry on your tier badge.
- Delete account — permanently removes your account and all saved scenarios. Type DELETE to confirm; this cannot be undone.
Your email address is fixed at registration — it’s your verified sign-in identity and cannot be changed from the app. If you need to move to a new address, contact [email protected].
FAQ
Why do my Overview numbers differ from the Compare table?
What is the difference between the Plan Success tile and the Monte Carlo tab?
Why does Historical show such different numbers from Moderate?
My plan depletes in Historical but survives in Moderate. Which is right?
What is the difference between CAGR and Average Return on the Market Assumption tile?
Why does the Roth Optimizer sometimes recommend not converting?
Can I model part-time income in early retirement?
What do On track, May need adjustment and Needs attention mean?
Does Pasture track my mortgage or other debt?
Is my data private?
Contact
Questions about your plan, your account, or something that looks wrong? Email [email protected] and a human will read it.
For privacy requests, use [email protected]; for anything about the product itself rather than your own plan, [email protected].
Social Security
Enter your estimated monthly benefit at your chosen start age. Default COLA is 2.5%. Pasture applies the IRS provisional income formula (Pub. 915) each year — between 0% and 85% of your SS benefit is taxable depending on total income. The thresholds ($32K/$44K MFJ; $25K/$34K Single/HOH) have never been inflation-adjusted since 1983 and 1993.