A retirement scenario is a copy of your plan with one assumption changed. It shows what that single choice does to your savings, taxes, and estate. The most useful retirement scenarios test your retirement date, Social Security age, spending, and returns, plus risks like a market crash.
Most people carry a handful of what-ifs around in their heads. What if I retire two years early? What if the market drops the year I stop working? Running each one against your full retirement plan turns a worry into a number you can act on.
Below are 20 retirement scenarios to run, with what to test in each one and how to set it up in the Boldin Planner.
Why Do Retirement Scenarios Need More Than a Simple Calculator?
Retirement scenarios need a planner that projects every year of your life, because one change ripples through income, taxes, and withdrawals for decades. A simple retirement calculator works from a few averages. It can’t show how claiming Social Security at 70 changes your tax bill at 75.
The Boldin Planner recalculates your plan each time you change an input. You see the effect on:
- Your Retirement Chance of Success: the share of 1,000 market simulations in which your savings last through every year
- Your estate: your projected assets and home equity at the end of your plan
- Your lifetime taxes: federal and state income tax across every year of your plan
- Your yearly cash flow: projected income, expenses, and savings balances over time
How Do You Run Retirement Scenarios in Boldin?
You run retirement scenarios in Boldin by copying your baseline plan and changing the assumptions you want to test. Your baseline stays your plan of record, built on your actual balances, home, and marital status.
You can create up to nine scenarios alongside your baseline and compare up to three side by side in the Scenario Manager. A Summary of Changes shows which inputs differ from your baseline.
Give each scenario one clear question and a matching name, like “Retire at 62.” Testing two changes at once makes it hard to tell which one moved the result.
1. Test Different Retirement Dates and Work Income
Your retirement date is the scenario most people run first, and it’s seldom a single date anymore. Many people go part-time, take a retirement job, or step away and return a year or two later.
In Boldin, you can tie income and savings to your retirement date in My Plan > Assumptions. Change the date in one place, and the whole plan updates. Try these:
- Retire one, two, or three years earlier or later than you planned
- Phase down with part-time work for a few years
- Lose your job, or stop working for health reasons, five years before your planned date
2. Test How Long Your Money Needs to Last
Your longevity age sets how many years your savings have to cover, which shapes how much you need to retire. Planning to 75 and planning to 95 give two very different answers.
Average life expectancy is a poor planning age, since about half of people outlive it. A longevity calculator gives a personal estimate. Run your plan to the longest age you might reach.
3. Compare Withdrawal Orders to Lower Lifetime Taxes
The order you pull money from accounts can change your lifetime tax bill by thousands of dollars. Taxes are one of the few places where a small change made early pays off for decades.
- Withdrawal order: Compare a traditional order (taxable, then tax-deferred, then Roth) with a customized order to see which costs less in total taxes.
- Bracket management: Spread income across years to stay in lower brackets.
- Tax diversification: See how holding money in taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts gives you more room to manage taxable income later.
Look for years with high projected taxes. Lowering taxable income in those years often does more than cutting it a little every year.
4. Compare Social Security Claiming Ages
Your Social Security claiming age is one of the largest decisions you’ll make. Each year you wait past full retirement age raises your benefit, up to age 70. Look up your estimates in your my Social Security account, then test claiming at 62, at full retirement age, and at 70.
If you’re married, test different claiming ages for each spouse. Having the higher earner wait until 70 also raises the survivor benefit, which is often the smartest Social Security move for couples. The Social Security Explorer in the Planner compares claiming ages for you.
5. Compare Average, Optimistic, and Pessimistic Forecasts
Testing your plan across forecasts shows how much room you have if the economy runs hotter or colder than you expect. Switching between average, optimistic, and pessimistic forecasts changes inflation, medical inflation, wage growth, home values, Social Security COLAs, and investment returns together.
Choose Forecast comparison in the Scenario Manager to see any scenario, including your baseline, across all three forecasts.
Your Retirement Chance of Success adds a second test. It runs 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations with random market returns and counts how many keep savings above zero in every year. The Monte Carlo Explorer runs on your average forecast.
6. Test Higher Savings Rates
Saving a little more each year can move your retirement date earlier or raise what you can spend later. In Boldin, you can set different savings rates for different stretches of time. Compare versions where you:
- Save part of every raise
- Raise your savings rate by one percentage point each year
- Shift contributions between pre-tax and Roth accounts
- Add your employer match, and any one-time deposits like a tax refund
Years when income runs ahead of spending create excess income. You can choose how much of it the Planner saves, and you can change that percentage up to five times over your life.
7. Test Different Spending Levels and Phases
Spending is the input you control most, so test more than one version of it. Many retirees spend more in the early, active years, less in their 70s and 80s, and more again on healthcare late in life.
- Estimate spending in five-year blocks, or by phase of retirement
- Add big one-time costs, like a major trip, a new roof, or help for a child
- Split your budget into must-spend and like-to-spend expenses, then test the must-spend version alone
- Add the cost of a big splurge, like a round-the-world cruise
Comparing a few versions shows you where your spending has room.
8. Test Roth Conversions
A Roth conversion moves money from a traditional 401(k) or IRA into a Roth account. You pay income tax on the amount now, and future qualified withdrawals come out tax-free.
The Roth Conversion Explorer tests conversion schedules against your whole plan and suggests an amount for each year.
9. Compare Pension Payout Options
If you have a pension, compare its payout options before you choose, because the decision is often permanent. A retirement calculator with pension support lets you enter cost-of-living adjustments, tax treatment, and survivor benefits.
Run one scenario with a monthly benefit and another with a lump sum rolled into your savings.
10. Test Housing Changes
Your home is often your largest asset, and few people test when or how they might tap its equity. Each of these makes its own scenario:
- Pay off your mortgage early, or refinance it
- Downsize or move to a lower-cost state
- Rent out part of your home
- Take out a reverse mortgage
11. Test Faster Debt Payoff
Paying off credit cards, medical bills, or car loans before you retire frees up cash flow for decades. Enter each debt on its own, then test higher monthly payments or a lower-rate consolidation loan.
The Debt Payoff Explorer compares the avalanche method (highest interest rate first) with the snowball method (smallest balance first). It shows your payoff dates and lifetime interest under each.
12. Test Higher Healthcare Costs
Healthcare is one of the biggest costs in retirement. Fidelity estimates a 65-year-old retiring in 2026 will spend about $185,500 on healthcare in retirement, not counting long-term care.
In Boldin, you choose your Medicare coverage type and premium level, and the Planner adds IRMAA surcharges based on your projected income. Test a higher premium level, and a higher medical inflation rate, to see how your plan holds up.
13. Test Higher Inflation Rates
Inflation raises your costs every year, so a small change in the rate adds up over a 30-year retirement. Consumer price inflation averaged 13.5% in 1980 and fell to −0.4% in 2009. In June 2022, prices ran 9.1% above the year before.
Run your plan at a higher inflation rate than you expect, and see how long your savings last.
14. Check for Surpluses and Shortfalls
Long projections often show years with more income than spending and years with less. Checking both shows where your plan has slack and where it runs short.
Surplus years follow your excess income setting, which decides how much is saved and where. If savings run out, the Planner tracks the gap as lifetime debt in a virtual account. You can see when the shortfall starts and how large it gets.
15. Test Ways to Pay for Long-Term Care
Long-term care is a likely cost, and an HHS analysis estimates 70% of adults who reach 65 will develop severe care needs. Your plan can test how you’d pay for it.
The Planner includes long-term care costs by default. You can model a long-term care policy or switch to one of these alternatives to long-term care insurance:
- A deferred lifetime income annuity
- Home equity
- Spending savings, then qualifying for Medicaid
- Care from a family member
16. Test an Inheritance, With and Without It
An expected inheritance can change your plan a great deal, and it can also fall through. Run one scenario that includes the money as a windfall and keep your baseline without it.
If your plan only works with the inheritance, treat that as a warning sign.
17. Test the Death of a Spouse
If you’re married, your plan has to work for whichever spouse lives longer. Create a scenario with an earlier longevity age for one spouse, and the Planner adjusts Social Security, taxes, and Medicare surcharges for the survivor.
Taxes often rise for the survivor, because single brackets are narrower than joint ones. Add or cut expenses at that point too, like home maintenance a spouse used to handle or travel you’d no longer take.
18. Test Investment Returns, Annuities, and Market Downturns
Your return assumptions shape how long your savings last, and Boldin lets you set a rate for each account. Try a range of returns, from cautious to hopeful, and see where your plan stops working. Then compare two other approaches:
- A bucket approach, with one account invested for growth, one for stability, and one in cash
- Buying a lifetime annuity to cover the gap between guaranteed income and expenses
The Market Risk Explorer tests three kinds of downturns against your plan:
- A decade of poor returns: 1% a year for 10 years, starting the year you retire
- Three straight losing years: a sequence of bad returns starting at −15%
- A custom downturn: your choice of timing, length, and depth
19. Test How Much You Can Leave to Heirs
Setting a legacy goal shows how much you can leave without putting your own retirement at risk. Add an amount you’d like to leave, then watch how it changes your Retirement Chance of Success.
If the goal costs too much, try a smaller amount or a later date for giving. A legacy goal works best alongside an estate plan in writing.
20. Plan the Retirement You Want
The most motivating scenario includes everything you hope for: the trips, the move near grandkids, and gifts to family.
Build that version too. If it falls short, work backward one trade-off at a time, keeping what matters most and trimming the rest, until the plan fits.
Why Keep Your Scenarios in One Plan?
Keeping your scenarios in one plan means every what-if starts from the same accounts, debts, and personal details. The Boldin Planner is built for people approaching or starting retirement. It saves your data, so you can come back, update your numbers, and test new scenarios as your life changes.
FAQ: Retirement Scenarios
What is a retirement scenario?
A retirement scenario is an alternate version of your plan that sits beside your baseline, the plan of record you expect to follow. Your baseline stays unchanged while the scenario tests one what-if, like an extra year of work or a later pension start. If you decide to make that change, you can set the scenario as your new baseline.
Can I model different retirement ages and see the financial impact?
Modeling different retirement ages is one of the most common uses for retirement planning software. In the Boldin Planner, you change your retirement date once and see its effect on savings, taxes, and your Retirement Chance of Success. Saved scenarios let you compare several dates side by side.
What retirement scenarios do most people run first?
First retirement scenarios tend to cover four inputs: retirement date, Social Security claiming age, spending, and an early market downturn. Each one changes your income and tax picture for decades, and the first three are choices you still control. Once those are set, people add long-term care, a spouse’s death, or an inheritance.
How many scenarios can you create in Boldin?
The Boldin Planner lets you create up to nine scenarios in addition to your baseline plan, for 10 in total. Account balances, debts, and basic information are shared across all scenarios. Retirement dates, income, expenses, rates of return, and money flows can differ in each one.
