Charting Finance.
Help Guide

A section-by-section guide to using the Charting Finance simulator. Click the ? icon in any section header to jump directly to its help entry.

🕐

Your Timeline

The Timeline is the control center for your financial plan. One chart — the wealth arc — draws your money's path across your life phases, pins the milestones that shape it, and carries a scrubbable cursor that drives every other section of the page. The scenario menu in the section heading switches between the independent portfolios that hold your data.

Elements

The Wealth Arc
The curve plots your total portfolio across the full simulation, using the currently selected metric. The starting value sits on the left endpoint, the ending value in bold on the right, and a checkpoint marks the value where the curve crosses into retirement. The age axis runs beneath, with calendar years at the extremes.
Phase Bands & Growth Rates
Tinted background bands mark your life phases — Accumulate in green, Retire in coral. Each band is headlined with that phase's annualized growth rate over its own span, as a pair: nominal and real (7.2%/yr · 4.0% real). A dashed line marks the retirement boundary.
Today's Dollars
A faint companion curve tracks the arc in inflation-adjusted dollars, and the start, end and cursor values each carry a smaller today's $ figure beneath them. It appears only for metrics where deflating means something — a balance, not a rate. This is the honest read on a long projection: a $4M portfolio in 2056 is not $4M of groceries.
Milestone Pins
Emoji pins anchored to the curve show asset lifecycle events — real estate buy/sell, mortgage open and payoff, Social Security and pension starts. Pins stack vertically when events cluster at the same age. Click any pin to open the edit modal for that asset.
"You are Here" Cursor
A vertical line with a chip showing the selected date, your age, and the portfolio value at that moment. Drag anywhere on the arc to scrub through time — or focus the arc and use ← / → to step by month (Shift for a year). Every chart, badge, and view on the page follows the cursor.
Month Details
The section directly beneath the timeline shows the month the cursor is on, always: net worth with its month-over-month delta, income, expenses, taxes, cash flow, and asset growth, plus what was withdrawn from your accounts over the past twelve months. Cash flow can run negative in retirement while asset growth offsets it — the section shows both so the pair reads together. More on reading it.
Phase Chips & Edit Popover
Below the arc, one chip per life phase showing its name and age range. Click a chip — or its colored dot on the arc's axis — to open a popover with Edit (opens the life event modal). The + Life event button adds a new event.
Scenario Menu
The chip in the section heading names the active scenario — a complete, independent portfolio with its own assets, fund transfers, life events, and guardrail settings. Click it to open the menu: each row shows a preview curve of that scenario's trajectory (green if it grew, red if it shrank), its note, and its ending value. The active row carries rename (✏️) and delete (🗑️) actions.
Date Controls & ⚡ AI Summary
Year and month dropdowns in the card's upper right jump to an exact date, and the ▶ play button auto-advances one month per second (scrub the arc or adjust a selector to pause). The ⚡ button in the section heading generates a markdown summary of your timeline and phases.

How To

Set up your life phases
1 Set your Current Age, Retirement Age, and Finish Age in the Settings Row at the top of the page. The timeline automatically creates Accumulate and Retire phases from these ages.
2 Click a phase chip below the arc (or the phase's dot on the arc's axis) to select it and open its popover; choose Edit to adjust the phase in the life event modal.
3 Open an asset's fund transfer modal (via the portfolio section). The transfers shown are specific to the currently selected phase — configure different allocations for Accumulate vs. Retire.
Navigate to a specific date
1 Use the Year and Month dropdowns to pick a date. All charts, the portfolio view, the visualizer, and every viewing badge update to reflect that month's data.
2 Alternatively, drag anywhere on the wealth arc. The cursor scrubs month by month as you drag — or focus the arc and step with the ← / → arrow keys (Shift jumps a year).
3 Click the ▶ play button next to the month selector to auto-advance one month per second. Everything animates in sync — sparklines, flow arrows, pipeline amounts, visualizer conduit, and wealth tank. Scrub the arc or adjust a selector to pause.
Inspect a single month — Month Details
1 Scrub the cursor to the month you're curious about. The Month Details section directly beneath the timeline always shows the month the cursor is on — there is nothing to open.
2 Read the rows together: in retirement, Cash flow often runs negative while Asset growth offsets it — the delta beside Net worth shows the net result for the month. The section updates as you scrub, so you can watch the flows change across the retirement boundary.
3 Withdrawn to meet obligations, on the right, is the odd one out: it covers the trailing twelve months, not the single month beside it, so it answers “what is this plan actually costing me per year?” It is money that genuinely left an account — living expenses, rent, the full mortgage payment including principal, property tax, maintenance and insurance. That makes it larger than twelve times the monthly Expenses row, which is an accounting figure that leaves mortgage principal and property tax out.
4 The Tax line beneath it is usually $0 while you are working, and that is correct: withholding comes out of your paycheck and never passes through one of your accounts, so you never withdrew it. When that is why it reads $0, the section says so — withheld at source appears beside it — and hovering the ⓘ explains the rule. Once the paycheck stops there is nothing to withhold from, and almost the whole tax bill turns into a withdrawal — which is why the figure jumps at retirement. If a pink Could not fund line appears, the plan owed more than any account could supply that year; the obligation was accrued but the money was never there.
5 Use Spreadsheet → or Credit memos → in the section heading to jump to that month's row in the detail views — both are already positioned at the cursor date.
Create and manage scenarios
1 Click the scenario chip in the section heading and choose ＋ New scenario. Pick a name and note, and choose whether to start blank or copy the current scenario's data.
2 Switch scenarios by clicking a row in the menu. Each row's preview curve and ending value show where that scenario lands. Scenarios are fully independent — assets, life events, fund transfers, and guardrail parameters are all scenario-specific.
3 On the active row, click ✏️ to rename the scenario or edit its note, or 🗑️ to delete it (hidden when only one scenario exists).
Quick Start
1 If you have no assets yet, a welcome banner offers four life-stage starting portfolios — each with salary or retirement income, accounts, a home, expenses, and realistic fund transfers for both phases. Or choose Start from Scratch.
2 The four on offer follow your Filing As setting. Filing Single you get Early Career, Mid Career, Pre-Retirement and Retired; filing jointly you get Young Couple, Dual Income Couple, Couple Nearing Retirement and Retired Couple — the joint profiles carry two salaries and two Social Security benefits. Change Filing As in the Settings Row and the banner re-offers.
3 Quick Start data adapts to your Current Age and Retirement Age settings — all asset dates, life event triggers, and fund transfer routing are computed dynamically.
💼

Your Portfolio

Your Portfolio shows every asset in your financial plan, organized into horizontal group columns. Two views — Assets and Flows — give you both a snapshot of what you own and a map of where your money goes.

Elements

⚠️ What Needs Attention
A panel above the asset list reporting what went wrong with the plan — not with the app. Findings are grouped into 💸 Paying for the plan (an obligation nothing could pay, an account that ran dry and was covered by the next one down) and 🔧 Needs setting up (no funding account configured, contributions that hit the annual limit, a required distribution that was not met). If the plan runs out of money, that month leads as its own callout above the list.

The panel opens itself once, on the transition from clear to not-clear — after that the badge is the only nag, so it won't fight you while you type. Not to be confused with the Issues 🐛 button in the page header, which is the form for reporting a bug in the tool itself.
⚠️ on an Asset Card
A warning marker on a card means an obligation this asset owed could not be paid. It does not mean the account is empty — a retirement account is supposed to draw down, and a zero balance alone never raises a flag. Open the card to see which months failed and why.
👓 Asset View
Hover an asset card and click 👓 (“View results”) to open a read-only view of what the simulation actually did to it, over three windows: This month, This year (January through the selected month) and Life to date. Below the numbers sit rule notes — plain-language explanations of the rules that fired, such as why a Roth withdrawal was untaxed, where the tax on untaxed income was settled instead, what was withheld from a pension before it paid out, or why a contribution was capped. Nothing here is editable; it is all simulation output.
Asset Columns
Assets are displayed in six horizontal columns: Income, Capital, Real Estate, Retirement, Expenses, and Taxes. Each column header shows the group total. All groups start expanded.
Asset Cards
Each asset card shows three layers: the asset's value at the selected date, a sparkline showing the full simulation trajectory with a "you are here" dot, and a flow row with colored arrows showing monthly inflows (green), growth (blue), and outflows (red). Hovering reveals four actions — ✎ edit, ⇄ transfers, 👓 view results, ✕ remove. Clicking the card body instead selects it, highlighting that asset across the charts.
Assets / Flows Toggle
Switch between the Assets view (grouped asset cards) and the Flows view (fund transfer pipelines showing where money moves between groups). Both views update as you navigate the timeline.
Viewing Badge
Shows the currently selected month and year. All values, sparkline dots, and flow amounts reflect the simulation state at this date.
Taxes Column
A virtual group that surfaces hidden taxes: FICA, income tax, capital gains, net investment income tax, and property tax. Click any tax item to highlight the contributing assets with a pulse animation across all columns.

Most rows show the selected month annualized. Net Investment Income is the exception: it is charged once a year, so its row shows the trailing twelve months instead — otherwise it would vanish for eleven months and read twelve times too high in the twelfth. It appears only in years you actually owe it.
Flow Pipelines
In the Flows view, money movement is organized as pipelines grouped by source (From Income, From Capital, From Retirement). Each pipeline card shows the monthly aggregate and individual transfer routes. Click a route to edit it.
Fund Transfer Modal
Accessed by hovering over an asset card and clicking the ⇄ button, or by clicking a route in the Flows view. Configure percentage-based transfers that are phase-specific (Accumulate and Retire phases have independent configurations).
Funding Backstop
Bills, mortgage payments, property tax and taxes still have to be paid when no fund transfer covers them. The simulator falls back to your everyday accounts, in this order: Cash → Savings → Taxable Account → US Treasury → Corporate Bond — the first one holding a positive balance pays. Sale proceeds and leftover take-home pay land the same way.

Retirement accounts are never used automatically. Spending a 401K, IRA or Roth has tax and penalty consequences the simulator will not choose for you, so if your plan means to fund expenses from retirement savings, set up an explicit fund transfer. When nothing is eligible, the obligation is marked Unfunded in that asset's Credit Memos rather than being quietly skipped.
⚡ AI Summary & + Add Asset
The ⚡ generates a markdown summary of your portfolio composition. The + button opens the asset creation dialog.

How To

Add an asset
1 Click the + button at the bottom-right of the portfolio card.
2 Select an asset type (e.g., Monthly Salary, Taxable Equity, Mortgage). The asset type determines the asset's behavior in the simulation — how it grows, how it's taxed, and what transfers are valid.
3 Fill in the display name, start/end dates, starting value, and annual return rate. Click Save to add the asset to your portfolio.
Configure fund transfers
1 Hover over an asset card and click the ⇄ button, or switch to the Flows view and click any transfer route to open the fund transfer modal.
2 Set a percentage (0–100%) for each destination asset. For example, route 15% of your salary to a 401K and 10% to a brokerage account during Accumulate.
3 Switch to the Retire phase on the timeline and configure different transfers — e.g., draw from retirement accounts to cover expenses.
Edit or delete an asset
1 Hover over the asset card and click the pencil icon to edit, or the ✕ to remove it.
2 In the edit dialog, modify the asset's fields — name, dates, values, return rates. Click Save to apply changes.
3 Removing an asset permanently deletes it and all its fund transfers from the current scenario.
Work through “What needs attention”
1 Start with the callout at the top if there is one — the month the plan runs out of money. That is the first month an obligation came due and no eligible account held a positive balance, so everything after it is downstream of the same failure.
2 Read 🔧 Needs setting up next. These are usually configuration, not arithmetic: no cash or savings account exists to pay from, a transfer is asking for more than the annual contribution limit allows, or a required minimum distribution has nowhere to land. They are often the cause of the row above.
3 Treat “Ran dry” notices as the early warning. The obligations were still met — the next account down covered them — but the plan is now leaning on its backstop. Scrub the timeline to that month and open the asset's 👓 view to see what drained it.
4 Remember that the simulator never spends a 401(k), IRA or Roth on its own. If a plan is meant to fund retirement from retirement savings, that has to be an explicit fund transfer — an unfunded obligation beside healthy retirement balances almost always means the transfer is missing.
Explore the Flows view
1 Click Flows in the Assets/Flows toggle at the top of Your Portfolio.
2 Pipelines are grouped by source: From Income, From Capital, From Retirement. Each pipeline card shows the monthly total and individual routes with percentages and dollar amounts.
3 Click any route to open the fund transfer modal for that asset. System transfers (mortgage payments, property tax, carrying costs) appear in italic and are auto-configured.
📊

Projections

The Projections section displays two side-by-side charts that visualize your portfolio's trajectory over the full simulation period. The Macro chart shows the big picture; the Micro chart shows the detail for the currently selected date.

Elements

Macro Projection Chart
A stacked area chart showing every asset's trajectory over the full simulation timeline. Color-coded by asset group. Driven by the current metric (the same one shown in every viewing badge).
Micro Projection Chart
A companion chart showing the individual assets from the currently expanded portfolio groups. Updates as you expand or collapse groups in Your Portfolio.
Metric Selector
A dropdown on the Macro chart that lets you switch the displayed metric. Options include Value (balance), Net Worth Change (month-over-month delta), Growth (appreciation), Cash Flow (wallet flows), Income, Expense, Taxes, and more. Changing the metric updates every section of the page.
Click-to-cycle Badges
Every Viewing: Apr 2026 · Value badge (Portfolio, Projections, Visualizer, Simulations, Details, Spreadsheet) is clickable. Click any badge to cycle through the macro metrics — the dropdown, timeline, asset cards, charts, and visualizer all update together.
Phase Date Markers
Vertical dashed lines on the Macro chart marking the boundaries between life event phases (e.g., the transition from Accumulate to Retire). Helps you see how your portfolio behaves across phases.
Fullscreen Button
Click the ⛶ in the upper-right of the Macro or Micro chart to expand it to fullscreen. Press Escape or click × to exit.

How To

Analyze your portfolio trajectory
1 Review the Macro Projection chart for the overall shape of your plan — steady growth during accumulation, drawdown during retirement.
2 Cycle through metrics by clicking any viewing badge (or use the metric dropdown). Value shows the balance curve. Net Worth Change shows how fast wealth is changing month by month — when cash flow exceeds growth, the delta goes negative even if you still have money. Growth, Cash Flow, Income, and Expense isolate specific contributors.
3 Click on the timeline or use the date selectors to move the cursor. The Micro chart, asset cards, visualizer, and every reactive element update to show that specific month.
🎲

Simulations

The Simulations section contains two tools for stress-testing your financial plan: Monte Carlo simulation for probability analysis, and Guardrails for dynamic withdrawal strategy testing.

Elements

Monte Carlo Chart
Runs 1,000 randomized simulations drawn from historical market data. Displays percentile bands (10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th) showing the range of possible outcomes for your portfolio, with your deterministic baseline overlaid.
With Guardrails Checkbox
When checked, Monte Carlo simulations apply your guardrail parameters (withdrawal rate, preservation, prosperity, adjustment) to each trial. When unchecked, simulations use your raw fund transfer percentages without dynamic adjustments.
Guardrails Chart
Visualizes the guardrail withdrawal strategy applied to your portfolio. Shows how dynamic spending adjustments respond to market conditions — cutting withdrawals in down markets and increasing them in up markets.
Guardrail Parameters
Four configurable inputs, defaulting to Target Rate 5%, Preservation 15%, Prosperity 15% and Adjustment 15%. The two bands are relative drift from the target rate, not absolute rates — at these defaults, spending is cut once your withdrawal rate exceeds 5.75% and raised once it falls below 4.25%. A reset button restores the defaults. Parameters are saved per scenario.

How To

Run a Monte Carlo simulation
1 Click Run in the Monte Carlo panel. The simulator runs hundreds of trials with randomized returns drawn from historical distributions.
2 Review the percentile fan chart. The median (50th percentile) shows the expected outcome; the 10th percentile shows a stress-test floor.
3 Check With Guardrails and re-run to see how dynamic withdrawal adjustments affect the range of outcomes.
Configure and run Guardrails
1 Set the Target Rate (e.g., 5%) — this is your baseline annual withdrawal percentage from the portfolio during retirement.
2 Set the Preservation and Prosperity bands. Each year the simulator compares your actual withdrawal rate — annual expenses over investable assets — against the target. Drift above the target by more than the preservation band and spending is cut; drift below it by more than the prosperity band and spending rises. It is the rate that triggers the rule, not the portfolio balance, which is why a falling market and rising expenses both set it off.
3 Set the Adjustment percentage — how much spending changes when a guardrail is triggered (15% means every open Monthly Expense is scaled by that much). Adjustments only apply after your retirement date; the accumulation years are left alone.
4 Click Run to see the guardrail strategy applied to a single deterministic simulation. The chart shows spending adjustments over time.
📋

Details

The Details section provides two complementary views into the financial transactions that make up your simulation: Credit Memos for individual transaction records, and Reports for aggregated summaries.

Elements

Credit Memos
A scrollable ledger of every financial transaction at the selected date — income receipts, fund transfers, expense debits, tax withholdings, asset appreciation, and more. Each memo shows the source, destination, amount, and transaction type. Every line is written by the engine at the moment it acted, so the ledger is the record of what happened rather than a summary assembled afterwards.
Memos Worth Looking For
Unfunded — an obligation nothing could pay; the first one in the plan is the month you ran out of money. Spillover from depleted … — an account hit $0 mid-payment and another covered the rest. Contribution capped — a transfer asked for more than the annual limit allows. Federal withholding — tax taken at the source of a retirement distribution or pension payment. Each of these is also surfaced in plain language by “What needs attention” and by the asset's 👓 view.
Reports
Aggregated financial summaries for the selected date. Includes income statements, balance sheets, tax summaries, and cash flow analysis. Reports condense hundreds of credit memos into actionable financial statements.
⚡ AI Summaries
Both Credit Memos and Reports have their own AI Summary buttons. Click ⚡ to generate a natural-language explanation of the transactions or financial statements for the current period.
Date-Sensitive Display
Both panels update automatically when you navigate the timeline. Moving to a different month shows that month's specific transactions and reports, letting you inspect any point in your financial plan.

How To

Inspect a specific month's finances
1 Navigate to the month you want to inspect using the timeline or date selectors.
2 Scroll through Credit Memos to see every individual transaction — useful for verifying fund transfer routing, tax withholding, and expense payments.
3 Check Reports for the big picture — total income, total expenses, net cash flow, and account balances as of that month.
📊

Spreadsheet

The Spreadsheet provides a tabular view of your entire simulation — every asset, every month, in a familiar grid format. Ideal for detailed analysis, comparison, and data export.

Elements

Data Grid
A scrollable table with rows for each month and columns for each asset. Cell values show the asset's balance at that point in time. The grid covers the entire simulation from start to finish.
Copy & Download
Two action buttons in the section header: Copy (📋) copies the spreadsheet data to your clipboard for pasting into Excel or Google Sheets. Download (⬇️) exports the data as a CSV file.

How To

Export your data
1 Scroll through the spreadsheet to review monthly values for each asset across the full simulation period.
2 Click the Copy button to copy the entire table to your clipboard. Paste into Excel, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet application for further analysis.
3 Click the Download button to save the data as a .csv file. This preserves all values and can be opened in any spreadsheet tool.
🚰

Visualizer

The Visualizer renders a hydraulic-style flow diagram of your portfolio laid out as a horizontal conduit. Income feeds in from the left, capital and retirement accounts sit above, expenses, housing, and taxes drain below, and a wealth tank on the right shows your total net worth. The view is reactive — it follows the timeline cursor and the currently selected metric automatically, no button press required.

Elements

Horizontal Conduit
The central pipe carrying money across the system. Its blend color reflects net flow at the cursor — green when inflows dominate, red when outflows dominate. Hover for a tooltip showing the net change since the prior month.
Income Sources
On the left: salary, self-employment, pension, and Social Security. Line thickness is log-scaled to the flow amount, so both small and large streams remain visible side by side.
Capital & Retirement (Above)
Taxable accounts, IRAs, and 401(k)s sit above the conduit. Each asset shows dual lines: a green line for inflows (contributions, growth) and a red line for outflows (distributions, withdrawals).
Expenses, Housing & Taxes (Below)
Outflows drain below the conduit: monthly expenses, mortgage/property, and taxes as a meta-flow aggregating every federal and local tax the plan pays — FICA, income tax, capital gains, net investment income tax, and property tax.
Wealth Tank
On the right: a vertical tank showing total portfolio value. Fill color signals health — red when under 15% of your peak, blue between 15–50%, and green above 50%.
Metric-Driven View
The visualizer follows whichever metric is selected globally. Cash Flow shows pipeline routes for the month. Value shows each asset's share of the portfolio. Other metrics render from history. Closed assets appear with a ⛔ emoji in place of their line.

How To

Read your money flow
1 Move the timeline cursor to any month. The visualizer re-renders automatically for that date — no Run button to click.
2 Cycle the metric badge (Value → Net Worth Change → Growth → Cash Flow…) to change what the lines represent. The conduit, assets, and wealth tank all update together.
3 Hover the conduit to see net change since the previous month. Compare Accumulate vs. Retire phases by scrubbing the cursor — watch the conduit blend shift from green to red as income sources close and expenses dominate.
🔮

Maximizer

The Maximizer uses a genetic algorithm to find optimal fund transfer allocations and guardrail parameters for your portfolio. It evolves hundreds of candidate solutions over 200 generations, balancing your preference between maximizing spending and maximizing terminal value.

Elements

Spending ↔ Terminal Value Selector
A row of discrete notches (0–100% in 5% steps) controlling the fitness objective. Left favors maximizing cash flow and spending; right favors maximizing end-of-plan portfolio value. Click any notch to set the balance.
Evolution Chart
A live-updating stacked area chart showing the fittest portfolio found so far. Updates every time the genetic algorithm discovers a better solution. Renders the full simulation timeline with phase markers.
Generation Counter
Displays progress through the 200-generation run (e.g., "Running Generation 45 / 200"), centred below the chart between the two best-value readouts.
Best Spending & Best Terminal
The two ends of the fitness objective, one under each end of the selector. Best Spending (left) is the annual spend in the last full year of the plan; Best Terminal (right) is the end-of-plan portfolio value. Both update in real time as better candidates are found — slide toward Spending and watch the first rise as the second falls. Hover Best Spending for lifetime spending, which is the figure the fitness function actually maximizes.
Recommendations Button
Appears after a run completes. Opens a popup showing the optimized fund transfer percentages, guardrail parameters, and a comparison to your current settings — actionable instructions you can apply manually.
Real-World Constraints
The optimizer respects real-world rules: mortgages and real estate are immutable, expenses are partially adjustable, retirement contributions are capped (25% accumulation, 10% retirement), and negative balances incur fitness penalties.

How To

Run the Maximizer
1 Set the Spending ↔ Terminal Value balance. All the way right means "maximize my ending portfolio value." All the way left means "maximize my spending/cash flow." A middle notch balances both.
2 Click Run. The genetic algorithm launches in a Web Worker (your browser stays responsive). Watch the chart update as better solutions are discovered over 200 generations.
3 When "Complete" appears, click Recommendations to see the optimized fund transfer allocations and guardrail settings. The popup shows what to change in your portfolio to approach the optimized result.
4 Adjust the Spending/Terminal Value selector and click Run again to explore different optimization targets. Each run is independent.
Apply recommendations
1 Open the Recommendations popup after a completed run. Review the suggested fund transfer changes for each phase (Accumulate and Retire).
2 Navigate to your Portfolio, select an asset, and open its fund transfer modal. Manually adjust the percentages to match the recommendations.
3 Update the Guardrail parameters in the Simulations section if the Maximizer suggests different withdrawal rate, preservation, prosperity, or adjustment values.