Read the Dashboard and retirement readiness

What the Dashboard is for

The Dashboard is the front page of one retirement plan. It brings together the assumptions you chose, the latest saved account values, one deterministic projection, the latest stochastic result, and a small number of planning reminders. The four top cards show Plan, Planning assumptions, Retirement funding and Retirement Readiness. The readiness ring summarizes the saved market-uncertainty result; Coast FI is a separate test without future retirement contributions. Its job is to help you orient yourself before you open a detailed report.

The Dashboard does not produce a separate retirement answer. Every number comes from information or analysis available elsewhere in the same plan. If a result looks surprising, the right response is to open the supporting page and understand the years, accounts, income, spending, taxes, or assumptions behind it.

A met Coast FI target means the separate no-more-contributions test reached the saved success threshold. It is not an instruction to stop saving or retire now. Open the Coast FI evidence and review any portfolio withdrawals before retirement before changing your saving plan.

Investable retirement funding excludes dedicated education savings such as a 529. Restricted college savings are shown separately and remain in household net worth and account history. Do not count the same college dollars again as resources for retirement spending. Other account restrictions, taxes, and modeled withdrawal rules still affect how the retirement funding can be used.

Use Your plan to maintain household inputs, Test A Decision to review Projection, test uncertainty or compare a What-if, and Keep It Current to review balances and annual guidance. The Test A Decision menu connects retirement timing, spending and Social Security questions to the appropriate analysis. Review a change, test it, compare its consequences, then adopt only the saved planning changes you intend. A sweep tests a range, a What-if changes household facts, a strategy comparison tests policies, and uncertainty analysis tests market assumptions.

Begin by confirming which plan you are viewing

Before interpreting the charts or readiness label, read the planning context at the top of the page. It identifies the plan, saved version, selected strategy, and balance date. Those four facts tell you which question the Dashboard is answering.

The main plan is the plan you maintain over time. A What-if is an alternative used to explore a change. A Dashboard can look better or worse simply because you opened a different plan, selected a different strategy, or are viewing an older saved version. Confirming the context first prevents that difference from being mistaken for a new financial development.

The balance date matters just as much. A projection based on balances from several months ago may still be useful for understanding the structure of the plan, but it should not be treated as a current measurement of your position. Update or refine balances before relying on a result that is sensitive to the size or mix of the portfolio.

When a main plan balance snapshot is missing or at least 30 days old, the Dashboard recommends a balance review after sign-in. This is non-blocking: YARCalc does not fetch or save prices automatically. Compare values with current sources and decide whether the change is material rather than reacting to ordinary market movement.

Next useful action uses the same priorities as Action Items: missing essentials and balance reviews, stale market analysis or annual guidance, due check-ins, then open annual decisions. Optional questions and ideas come afterward. A saved report can remain a past accomplishment while needing a refresh; saving a baseline or calculating a Projection does not record your review.

Use the four summary cards as a reasonableness check

Planning assumptions shows a few assumptions with unusually large influence on a retirement projection: each person’s retirement timing, baseline annual spending, and the return method used for the deterministic projection. These are not a complete summary of the plan. They are a quick test of whether the Dashboard is describing the retirement you meant to model.

Pause if a retirement age is wrong, annual spending is implausibly low or high, or the return assumption is not the one you intended. Correcting a foundational assumption is more important than interpreting a favorable chart built from the wrong premise. Use Edit assumptions to review the complete saved information and Input and model guide for the review checklist; do not assume that the three highlights are the only inputs affecting the result.

Use a Dashboard question to open the analysis that answers it

Use Questions YARCalc can help answer to find a next step for retirement timing, sustainable spending, phased retirement, Social Security, early market losses, or resources for heirs. Choose the question that matters to your household, then review the inputs and assumptions before running its analysis.

Each main action opens the reviewed YARCalc workflow that can produce evidence for the question. A retirement-age or spending question opens the matching Variable Sweep; a phased-retirement or early-loss question opens a What-if starting point; an heir question opens Projection’s after-tax financial-account estimate. Property, liabilities, and excluded estate components remain visibly separate.

What the Wealth Projection shows

Wealth Projection sits beside prioritized Action Items. Expand chart gives the chart the full content width and places actions below; the displayed data stays the same. Your planning journey, Questions YARCalc can help answer and Ideas to test follow the chart and actions. The Wealth Projection joins recorded account-balance history to the annual ending balances from the deterministic projection. The Actual line comes from dated balance snapshots you have saved. When more than one snapshot exists in a calendar year, the chart uses the latest one for that year. The Projected line begins from the current plan and follows the single return path named beneath the chart title.

On the main plan, the Projected line begins at the final Actual balance. A What-if keeps the recorded series labeled Main plan actual because the history belongs to the main plan. If the What-if changes its starting balance, an amber starting-adjustment bridge connects the last Main plan actual to the What-if start and makes the difference explicit; if the starting balance is unchanged, the lines connect directly.

A fixed-return projection applies the saved deterministic return assumption. A historical projection follows the selected historical period. Neither line is a forecast of the path markets will actually take. The chart is most useful for seeing the shape of the plan: when accumulation becomes withdrawal, whether a major event changes the direction, and whether modeled account balances approach or cross zero.

The retirement marker shows the primary person’s retirement year. The horizontal zero-dollar line is a solvency reference, not a comfort target. A line that remains above zero can still conceal an uncomfortable tax bill, an early spending reduction, heavy dependence on one account, or very little margin for poor markets. A line that falls sharply is a reason to open Projection and find the first year in which income, spending, taxes, or withdrawals change.

Future values on this chart are nominal dollars for their future years. Inflation may be reflected in expenses and other assumptions, but that does not turn the plotted balances into today’s purchasing power.

How to interpret Retirement Readiness

The separate RMD needs attention warning describes a distribution the deterministic model could not complete, including its year, account, and unmet amount. Household spending can remain funded while a distribution needs action. Taxes on the uncompleted distribution and possible penalties remain unresolved; review the warning and Projection before relying on the result.

Retirement Readiness summarizes the latest saved stochastic analysis for this plan. Test Market Uncertainty runs the plan through many generated market and inflation paths. The displayed success percentage is the share that fund modeled spending and taxes in every year through the selected horizon, including any enabled spending cuts. It does not require a positive ending balance or meeting a legacy target. Unmet required distributions are reported separately. The percentage is conditional on the saved assumptions; it is not the probability that real life will unfold exactly as modeled.

Not analyzed means there is no saved stochastic result to summarize. Out of date means you should run the analysis again before relying on it for current decisions. Recalculation needed means you should run it again before using its recommendations. A new calendar day alone does not expire it, although a birthday can change a modeled age or horizon. Read the explanation beside the result; the Dashboard does not make a current readiness judgment from an out-of-date result.

Saved analysis · Valuations updated means daily balances or prices have changed while the planning choices remain the same. The displayed probability belongs to the original dated analysis. It does not create a daily rerun task or reopen accepted actions. Recalculate when you want an estimate using current values.

On track means the saved success percentage meets or exceeds the success target in your planning policy. Needs review means it is below the target by no more than ten percentage points. Plan changes needed means the gap is larger. These labels compare one modeled result with your own policy target; they do not declare that you may or may not retire.

When a current result is below target, the Dashboard explains the gap and may show a P10 ending balance or a typical depletion year. P10 is a downside percentile: ten percent of the generated paths ended below that value and ninety percent ended above it. It is not the worst possible result, and it is not the same as P95. Open Test Market Uncertainty to see the full distribution, spending effects, first-shortfall information, and assumptions behind the summary.

How to read the portfolio and net-worth figures

The portfolio card totals the accounts saved in the plan and separates taxable or cash accounts from tax-advantaged accounts. It then shows property and other owned assets, subtracts modeled liabilities, and reports estimated net worth. This gives useful context, but the categories are not interchangeable.

Net worth can include a home that you intend to keep, while retirement spending normally requires liquid account balances or an explicit plan to sell or access an asset. Tax-advantaged accounts can also have different tax consequences, and restricted HSA or 529 money is not ordinary spending cash. For that reason, the largest number on the card is not automatically the amount available to fund retirement.

If the total looks wrong, reconcile the accounts and balance date before changing a strategy. If the total looks right but the projection is weak, inspect the timing, tax treatment, spending, and withdrawal policy rather than assuming the problem is the account total alone.

Action Items, Quick Tasks, and Your Planning Journey serve different purposes

Action Items calls attention to a few current matters, such as missing or old balances, a due reminder, or a required or warning item from the annual guidance. It intentionally does not reproduce the entire Annual Action Plan. “No urgent action items” means no current required or warning item is being surfaced here; it does not mean every assumption is complete or every possible improvement has been considered.

Quick Tasks are simply shortcuts to common work. They are not recommendations and their presence does not imply that you need to run every report.

Your Planning Journey tracks whether you have explored useful parts of YARCalc, such as saving balances, running an analysis, creating a What-if, or building history across dates. It can suggest a sensible next activity, but it is not a readiness score. Optional advanced activities do not need to be completed merely to make the plan valid.

Why the main plan and What-if Dashboards differ

The main plan is the ongoing plan, so its Dashboard includes monitoring work such as balance updates, quarterly check-ins, action decisions, and the planning journey. A What-if Dashboard stays focused on the alternative being tested. Changes and analyses remain in that plan, while dated balance snapshots, check-ins, and adopted action decisions remain attached to the main plan.

Ideas to test create a separate What-if so you can explore a later retirement date, different spending, another claiming age, or a different allocation without overwriting the current plan. Creating the What-if does not adopt the idea. Review exactly what changed, compare the results with the main plan, and keep the tradeoff visible.

A spending-guardrail idea reflects Guardrail spending cuts in this plan’s saved stochastic settings. Bad-market response is a separate option: enabling it does not enable drawdown guardrails. Open Test Market Uncertainty and review Plan spending & retirement response before changing either. These settings reduce discretionary spending only, so confirm that the household could accept the modeled cuts.

Saved settings describe the next analysis; a past result keeps the response settings used for that run. Changing settings does not recalculate a saved result. Review its retained assumptions when comparing the Dashboard idea with an older report.

A practical way to review the Dashboard

Start with the plan, version, strategy, and balance date. Next, confirm that the retirement dates, spending, and return assumption in Plan Highlights are plausible. Then read the Wealth Projection for its broad shape and note the first major change or decline.

After that, read Retirement Readiness and check whether its analysis is current. If the result is below target, open the full stochastic report rather than trying to diagnose the plan from one percentage. Reconcile the portfolio and net-worth figures, then review any Action Item whose reason is clear and relevant.

When something looks wrong, follow the evidence to the detailed page. Use Projection for a year-by-year cash-flow question, Test Market Uncertainty for uncertainty and percentiles, Plan Editor for an input, Update Balances for account values, and Annual Action Plan for dated or account-specific guidance. Change the plan only after you understand which assumption or event produced the result.

What the Dashboard cannot decide for you

The Dashboard cannot tell whether the retirement described by the inputs is personally acceptable, whether an assumption will prove accurate, or whether a strategy is appropriate for you. It does not show every tax detail, account restriction, year-by-year withdrawal, spending cut, market path, or legal consideration.

Treat it as a navigation and screening page. A favorable summary is a reason to inspect the important details with confidence, not a reason to stop reviewing them. An unfavorable summary is a reason to find the source of the result and test realistic alternatives, not a verdict that retirement is impossible.