Retirement Plan Optimizer
Search Social Security claim ages, Roth conversions and withdrawal order together. The three meet on your tax return, so the best answer to each alone is not the best plan. See each solo optimum beside the joint one.
Household
Social Security
The monthly amounts on your Social Security statement. A claim age below your age today means benefits have started, and that claim is left alone.
Accounts today
Income and spending
Your conversion plan today
Your withdrawal order today
Assumptions
All three together, versus your plan
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What heirs keep after tax, today's dollars
Best single change
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Claim ages, conversions or order, moved alone
What searching together adds
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Over that best single change
Markets the joint plan survives
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Searching
One decision at a time, then all three
| Search | Claim at | Conversions | Withdrawals | Heirs keep | Versus yours | Lifetime tax | Lifetime benefits | Markets survived | Heirs, worst tenth |
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Each solo search moves one decision and holds the other two as you entered them. Dollar figures are in today's dollars at the steady return; the last two columns are from the stress test.
Taxes and surcharges each year
Account balances, all three together
How it works›
Why together. Claiming later opens years with little income, which conversions can fill at low rates. Conversions shrink the RMDs that later make Social Security taxable and lift Medicare premiums. The withdrawal order decides which bracket you are in while both happen. Each solo search holds the other two decisions where you set them, so it can't see those trades.
What is searched. Whole-year claim ages from today, or 62, through 70 for each spouse; no conversions, filling the 12%, 22% or 24% bracket, or staying under the first or second IRMAA line; and five withdrawal orders, plus anything different you entered. Claim ages are searched every other year against every combination, then year by year around the five leading plans.
Benefits. From the benefit at full retirement age: reduced 5/9% a month for the first 36 months early and 5/12% beyond, raised 2/3% a month after it to 70. A lower earner is topped up to half the other's full benefit once both have filed. After a spouse's death the survivor keeps the larger benefit, under the widow(er)'s limit. Benefits start in the plan year you reach the claim age.
Ranking. Plans that leave spending unmet rank last. The rest rank by after-tax wealth at the end of the plan in today's dollars: Roth and taxable at full value, pre-tax less your heirs' tax rate. Your plan-through age and your spouse's age at death decide how much delay is worth, so try more than one.
Stress test. The ranking uses the steady return your average and volatility compound to. The five headline plans are then run through the same seeded random markets, so their survival rates and worst-tenth estates can be compared without the luck of the draw deciding it.