firenum - retirement planner

Use when someone asks when they can retire, if their money will last, their FIRE number (the planner shows when they'd reach it), or about Coast, Barista, Lean or Fat FIRE, and gave numbers (age, income, savings, spending, debts). Send what they gave, as said. Returns its answer and plan link.

Turns what someone has said about their money into firenum's answer and their plan in firenum's Fire Planner (FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early). The answer is the planner's own, as their plan shows it once opened: when they can retire with their contributions, growth and inflation, graded three ways (average returns, 500 Monte Carlo simulations, every historical start year since 1872). For a FIRE number it gives the number and, once it has their age, when they would reach it. All parameters are optional: with too little to grade, missing says what to ask for.

Reply from answer. Give the headline with both counts: the headline's date is the first month the money lasts on average returns, and the counts say how often that survives real market swings. When a count is under half, open with that count ("The money lasts in only N of 500 simulated markets"), never with yes, even a qualified one ("on average returns, yes", "a risky yes"): the date works on average but fails in most markets. coast_number is their Coast FIRE number for coast_age (what they would need invested today to stop saving). coast is the planner's own answer to stopping saving today: whether the money still lasts if they retire on the headline's date and, if not, the date that works without more saving. assumed, when present, is what the answer took for something they didn't say: say so in those terms. missing is what the planner needs before it can grade anything: ask for it and call again. To grade another retirement year, call again with retire. Amounts are in their currency, sums in today's money. table is their net worth year by year on each model, with income, spending and withdrawals, and assumptions is what the answer rests on (the rates, how each model works, how their numbers were read, what is not modeled): answer follow-ups from them (what they would have at 60, when the money runs out in a bad market, why a date) without calling again, and say what an answer assumes when it matters.

Give them the returned url exactly as it is: it opens their quick-start with these numbers filled in, then the whole plan (stress tests, a year-by-year table, where the money goes). Without source=agent the planner opens it as a shared plan that saves nothing. It runs in their browser with no account, and nothing is saved until they confirm: the link then becomes a new plan, "From a link", beside any plans they have. The plan keeps the accounts, spending lines, debts, pension, Social Security and rental income sent. Salary and side income become one monthly income.

Income is annual. Expenses and contributions are monthly. Amounts in whole currency units (not cents). Growth and inflation are percentages.

Before retirement, any spending, debt payments and contributions that income doesn't cover are paid from savings. Without salary or side_income, and with retirement still ahead, the answer assumes an income that covers spending, contributions and debt payments until then (assumed says so), and the quick-start asks for it.