Where will your retirement cash actually come from?
Combine pension income, Social Security, traditional and Roth retirement accounts, taxable investments, other income and your spending target — then follow the cash flow and assets year by year.
After recurring income arrives, how much must your portfolio provide each year — and what happens to the assets if the assumptions continue?
The base view stays simple. If you want more detail, optional layers below can add an illustrative federal-tax/RMD model, a survivor stress test, and a strategy comparison for Roth conversions and withdrawal order. Terra still does not predict markets or tell you that retirement is “safe.”
The advanced layers use the same scenario you build below. You do not need to complete Tax/RMD, Survivor Planning or Strategy Comparison to use the base planner.
Build your base scenario first, then use the optional layers if they would help answer your next question.
Use amounts you actually know when possible. Every assumption stays visible. Results update as you change fields; the Build button refreshes the model and takes you to the results.
Terra grows your current assets to the retirement age you choose, then models annual cash flow through the planning age.
Keep the tax buckets separate. The base view uses them for withdrawal order; the optional Tax & RMD layer can use the same buckets for a more detailed federal-tax illustration. Contributions below stop when the retirement cash-flow projection begins.
Use your SSA estimate if available. SSA can show estimates in today's dollars or future dollars, so tell Terra which kind of number you entered.
Use this for part-time work, rental income, an annuity or another recurring source. Enter the annual amount when it begins.
Spending and the optional tax budget are entered in today's dollars and inflate from today. Income amounts above begin at the dollar amount you enter. Dollar fields display with a $ sign and commas when you are not actively editing them.
The example below is already modeled. Change any input or press Build to refresh it.
My Terra saves only when you press Save to My Terra.
The table uses future-year dollars for annual cash flow and shows the ending portfolio in both future dollars and today's purchasing power.
| Age (you / partner) | Spending + tax | Social Security | Pension | Other income | Portfolio draw | Unfunded | Ending assets | Ending assets · today's $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build the scenario to populate the year-by-year cash flow. | ||||||||
A red row means the modeled portfolio could not fully fund that year's stated spending need. A light-green row means recurring income exceeded the spending need and the excess was added to taxable investments in the model.
The planning path is visible near the top of the page. These detailed inputs stay lower so the base calculator remains approachable.
Terra can rerun the same retirement scenario with an illustrative federal-income-tax calculation, Social Security taxation and required minimum distributions. You only need a few extra assumptions.
Built on top of the base cash-flow scenario. Federal-tax estimates use 2026 law as the starting point and inflate permanent thresholds with your inflation assumption.
Layer 2 ignores the base planning-tax allowance. Modeled federal tax and any state/local & other allowance above are added separately.
| Age | Federal tax | RMD | Traditional draw | Taxable draw | Roth draw | Ending assets · today's $ |
|---|
If you included a spouse/partner above, Terra can show how spending, Social Security, pension income, filing status and assets may change after a modeled first death.
A stress test for the household after one spouse dies first. This is deliberately simplified so the assumptions remain understandable.
| Age (you / partner) | Status | Spending | Recurring income | Federal tax | RMD | Ending assets · today's $ |
|---|
Close or leave this survivor panel open, then use Layer 4 below to compare Roth conversions and withdrawal order. The first Strategy release uses the Tax/RMD household projection as its baseline; Survivor assumptions are shown separately rather than mixed into the strategy result.
Use the same Tax/RMD assumptions to compare a Roth-conversion approach against the no-conversion baseline, then see how the three withdrawal orders behave with everything else held constant.
Compare — do not optimize. Terra shows how a Roth-conversion approach and withdrawal order change the modeled tax, RMD and account-balance path under the same assumptions.
Important: Ending total assets simply adds the account balances. A dollar left in a Traditional account can carry future tax that a qualified Roth dollar may not, so the total alone is not an after-tax “winner” score. Compare the tax path and the Traditional/Roth mix together.
Today's dollars. A conversion strategy often shifts some tax earlier rather than simply eliminating it.
Today's dollars. Roth conversions can reduce later Traditional balances and therefore future RMDs.
Future-year dollars except the final column. Conversion is a transfer to Roth; it is not included in portfolio spending withdrawals.
| Age | Roth conversion | Federal tax | RMD | Traditional draw | Ending Traditional · today's $ | Ending Roth · today's $ | Ending assets · today's $ |
|---|
These three rows turn Roth conversions off and change only the withdrawal order. Terra does not label one “best”; a higher ending balance can come with a different tax path and account mix, and Traditional/Roth dollars are not equal on an after-tax basis.
| Withdrawal order | Lifetime federal tax · today's $ | Lifetime RMDs · today's $ | Ending Traditional | Ending Roth | Ending Taxable | Ending total assets | Shortfall |
|---|
The purpose is to expose the moving pieces, not hide them behind a “retirement score.”
Each account grows using your gross-return assumption less the annual investment-cost assumption. Contributions are added at year-end until the cash-flow start age.
Pension, Social Security and other recurring income are applied first. Any remaining spending gap is withdrawn from the portfolio using the order you selected.
If recurring income exceeds the modeled spending need, Terra adds the surplus to the taxable bucket at year-end. Taxes on that surplus are not automatically modeled.
The base result stays easy to read. The optional Tax & RMD layer uses 2026 federal brackets, Social Security taxation rules, an estimated taxable-gain share for brokerage withdrawals and IRS Uniform Lifetime RMD factors. It is a planning illustration, not a tax return.
Layer 4 reruns the Tax/RMD projection rather than editing the prior result. Roth conversions move modeled assets from Traditional to Roth, add the converted amount to ordinary taxable income, and leave spending cash flow unchanged except for the resulting tax. In RMD years the required distribution is taken first. Terra compares the result with a no-conversion baseline and separately compares withdrawal orders; it does not claim to optimize the strategy.
One click helps us see what needs improving. Terra does not send your calculator inputs or questionnaire answers with this feedback.