Retirement Bridge Planner

Your plan

All values are in today's dollars unless noted.

Age and spending

Current age

Retirement age

Spending today ($/yr)

Inflation %

Healthcare 50–65 ($/yr)

Healthcare 65+ ($/yr)

Healthcare inflation %

Healthcare typically inflates 4–6%/yr.

Taxable assets

Cash / money market

Bonds / reserves

Taxable gains (stock)

529 (education)

Count 529 as emergency fallback

Retirement accounts

Current 401(k)

Old 401(k)s

Traditional IRA

HSA

Roth basis (contrib.)

Roth earnings

Bridge strategy

Primary strategy

Conversion taxes paid from

72(t) source account

Roth conversion source

72(t) gross / yr

72(t) tax rate %

Roth conv. gross / yr

Conv. tax rate %

Convert from age

Convert through age

HSA qualified spend / yr

Cap gains rate %

Income sources

Spouse 1 pension age

Spouse 1 pension / yr

Spouse 2 pension age

Spouse 2 pension / yr

SS start age

Combined SS / yr

Returns and stress

Bond/cash return %

Stock return %

Stock allocation %

Crash pattern

Crash severity %

Inflation spike

Simplified annual math. Not an IRS rules engine, plan-document checker, or tax software.

Plan signal

Run your plan to see results

Enter your assumptions on the left, then press Run plan.

— verdict

Accessibility breakdown

Why "rich on paper" is not the same as "ready to retire"

Most early retirees anchor on total net worth. The bridge years care about what you can actually spend without triggering a 10% penalty.

Model limitation: This is a planning illustration, not a rules engine. It does not validate exact SEPP payment methods, plan-specific Rule of 55 terms, ACA subsidies, ACA cliff effects, IRMAA, state taxes, RMDs, pension survivorship, or exact Roth ordering rules. Roth conversions can spike MAGI and materially change ACA costs. Confirm specifics with a CPA or fiduciary planner before acting.

Liquid runway over time

Each bar shows years of spending sitting in cash, bonds, and taxable gains at start of year. Watch for bars below 2 years — that's when bad timing forces panic decisions.

Liquid runway (years) Below 2 yr — fragile SS / pension milestone

Retirement phases

What this planner is built to show

Most retirement calculators ask one question: does the money last to age 95? They model net worth on the back of average returns, fixed withdrawal rates, and a single tax assumption, then return a green checkmark or a red warning.

This planner asks a different question. Can you actually access enough spendable cash during the US bridge years between retirement and age 59½, when most of your money sits behind a 10% early-withdrawal penalty, when ACA and Medicare decisions matter, and when one bad sequence of market years can permanently break the plan?

What the model tracks separately

Account access rules. Current 401(k), old 401(k)s, traditional IRA, Roth contributions, Roth conversion vintages, Roth earnings, HSA, taxable basis, taxable gains, and the 529 — each handled with its own withdrawal logic.
Rule of 55. Only the current employer 401(k) is treated as Rule-of-55 accessible, and only if you separate at 55+. Old 401(k)s and IRAs are not eligible.
Roth five-year vintages. Conversions create vintages tracked year by year. Each must season for five tax years before the principal can be withdrawn penalty-free.
Healthcare separately. Pre-Medicare insurance is modeled as a distinct line. For a family it can easily run $20–30K/year, and lumping it into general spending hides the real bridge stress.
Bridge stress signal. Looks at liquid runway, allocation, and lowest cash year to flag plans that look rich on paper but are fragile to a single bad year.
Rough MAGI signal. A back-of-envelope income signal to flag possible ACA subsidy issues during pre-Medicare years. ACA subsidies are not calculated here.

What this planner does not do

Federal brackets, state tax, IRMAA, RMDs, NIIT, AMT, capital gains brackets, or the standard deduction.
Exact ACA subsidy math, IRA aggregation rules, Roth IRA five-year clock interactions, or the specific SEPP payment-method calculations (RMD method, amortization, annuitization).
Return-to-India, RNOR, FX, or India tax-residency planning. Use the NRI Retirement Path Optimizer for cross-border paths.
Plan document specifics — your 401(k) may not allow partial distributions, may not allow Rule of 55 separations, or may have unique vesting.
Pension survivorship elections, COLA assumptions, or buyout offers.
Behavioral risk — the temptation to sell in a downturn is the single largest threat to any plan, and no calculator can model it.

How to use it well

Run the base case. Then run the same plan with the crash-in-year-1 pattern. If the second run shows a shortfall or pushes liquid runway below two years, the plan is fragile regardless of what the long-term numbers say. Bridge years punish bad sequences far more than the rest of retirement does.

Then run again with retire age 55 and Rule of 55 strategy. Compare the lowest-liquid figures across scenarios. The right early retirement age is rarely the youngest one your spreadsheet allows — it is the one where the bridge stays resilient under stress.