These three ages define the whole simulation. Start Age sets the year the plan begins and fixes your birth year, which is what Social Security timing, the RMD start age (72, 73 or 75 under SECURE 2.0), catch-up contribution eligibility, and the age-60 gate on deferred-account tax attribution are all measured against. Retirement Age is where the Accumulate phase ends and the Retire phase begins — every life event trigger, asset start date and fund transfer switch derives from it. Finish Age ends the run.
These are the same three fields as the Settings Row on the main page — changing them here changes them everywhere. Filing status, inflation and backtest year live on the main page only.
Every run starts from the 2026 federal tables — brackets, capital gains bands, the standard deduction, the Social Security wage base and the contribution limits — selected by your filing status. From the second simulated year onward each of those figures is indexed forward by your inflation rate. The one exception is the primary-home sale exclusion, which is fixed in statute at $250,000 / $500,000 and is deliberately never indexed.
Tax Year below is recorded with your settings but does not currently select a different table. It is saved, shared and passed to background workers; no part of the engine reads it. See Rules → Tax Rates for what the simulation actually applies.
Engine diagnostics add a third category — 🧪 Engine diagnostics — to the “What needs attention” panel above your asset list, alongside 💸 Paying for the plan and 🔧 Needs setting up. It reports where the simulation’s own bookkeeping does not reconcile. These are notes about the engine, not about your finances — most people should leave this off.
Charting Finance does not store any user data on its server! All user information is stored only on your computer in your web browser's Local Storage.
Restores ages, tax year, filing status, inflation, property tax and engine diagnostics. Your assets, scenarios, guardrail parameters and backtest year are untouched.