Methodology
How the Decision Lab math works
Education, not advice. The Decision Lab runs hypothetical scenarios from your inputs and the assumptions below. It is not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. It is not a prediction or a guarantee. The product’s inflation assumption is 2.5% per year. This page does not publish a different default.
The Retirement Decision Lab at app.healthymoney.io compares two retirement ages side by side. You enter your own savings, contributions, spending, and Social Security. The screen shows projected outcomes under those assumptions so you can look at the two options together.
What you enter
- Savings. All invested retirement savings, combined.
- Contributions. Your contribution plus any employer match, per year.
- Spending. In today’s dollars. The Lab adds inflation for you.
- Social Security. The annual benefit for the claiming age you choose. A number on the screen is a placeholder until you replace it. Use your own estimate from your my Social Security statement. Healthy Money does not estimate your benefit.
You then choose the two ages to compare. The same assumptions apply to both.
Defaults shown in the Lab
These are the product’s current placeholders. They are not forecasts, and they are not recommendations. You can change them. The Lab’s own notes are summarized here so this page matches the tool.
| Assumption | Default in the Lab | What the Lab says it means |
|---|---|---|
| Inflation | 2.5% per year | A placeholder near the long-range CPI assumption in the Social Security Trustees Report intermediate scenario. Not a forecast. |
| Investment return | 6% nominal per year | An illustrative nominal return for a diversified portfolio, before fees and taxes. Not a forecast. Sensitivity controls try about 1 point higher or lower. |
| Contribution growth | 2% per year | Contributions rising roughly with wages. Set this to 0% to keep contributions flat. |
| Spending change beyond inflation | 0% | Spending keeps pace with inflation. Negative values model spending that declines with age. |
| Plan through age | 95 | A long planning horizon, past average life expectancy, so the picture is tested for a long life. |
| Social Security placeholder | $24,000 per year at claiming age 67 | Not your benefit. Age 67 is full retirement age for people born in 1960 or later. Claiming earlier reduces the benefit and claiming later, up to 70, increases it. Enter the amount for the age you choose. |
Spending in the model is the amount you enter, inflated. The Lab does not apply a 4% withdrawal rule or any other rule of thumb you may have read. Those rules sometimes appear in Healthy Money articles as ideas people discuss. They are not this calculator.
How a year is stepped
Scenarios are deterministic and move in yearly steps. Social Security in the model is the amount you enter for your claiming age, increased each year by the inflation rate in use.
The report can also scale that benefit to ages 62, 67, and 70. That scaling is an illustration. It is not a Social Security Administration estimate, and it is not an optimizer that tells you when to claim.
What the math leaves out
The Lab says this directly, and it belongs on this page too:
- Not a prediction, a guarantee, or personalized financial, tax, or legal advice.
- Real returns, inflation, and benefits will vary.
- No taxes, account types, fees, required withdrawals, or spousal benefits.
The full list for the run you are looking at is on the Lab screen, next to the inputs. If a label there is more specific than this page, believe the screen for that run.
Plus dials
Plus dials, including the stock, bond, and cash mix, are an illustration. They are not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any investment. Public purchase of Plus is not open. The Plus page explains the package. The free comparison does not require Plus.
Open the Decision Lab when you want to type your own numbers.