Household and Social Security
Enter household dates, state, and filing status
Set the people and dates that determine when work, benefits, taxes, and survivor years enter the plan.
The household calendar controls the entire plan
Birth dates, retirement dates, planning-end dates, marital or partner status, and tax-filing assumptions form the calendar on which the rest of YARCalc operates. They determine which person is working, when benefits may begin, when Medicare and required-distribution rules become relevant, how long spending must be funded, and when survivor years begin. Mark an unsettled retirement date as an estimate and revise it as the decision becomes clearer.
A small date error can move several results at once. A retirement date in the wrong year can leave salary and contributions running too long; an incorrect birth date can shift benefits or age-based rules; a horizon that ends too soon can make a fragile plan look comfortable simply because the difficult later years were omitted.
Choose dates that describe the plan you mean to test
Use actual birth dates. For retirement and benefit decisions, enter the date represented by this plan rather than the date you hope the model will recommend. The main plan should reflect the current intention; competing dates belong in clearly named What-ifs or a sweep.
Choose a planning end long enough to examine the risk that either person lives substantially longer than expected. In a two-person household, do not end the plan when the first person dies. The survivor may face lower household income, a different filing status, higher tax pressure, and many years of continued spending.
Review the household section when marriage, divorce, separation, widowhood, residency, dependency, or retirement timing changes. A birthday alone does not require editing the saved birth date. YARCalc derives current age from the birth date and the planning day, updating age on the birthday.
Enter people, dates, and tax context deliberately
Assign income, benefits, accounts, and goals to the correct person after establishing the household. Ownership affects survivor planning and person-specific rules, so a household total cannot always substitute for individual records.
Select the filing and state assumptions that describe the plan. These choices help the annual projection estimate taxes; they are not a legal determination of filing eligibility or residency. If a future move or marital change is uncertain, compare it separately rather than editing the main plan as though it already occurred.
YARCalc places events into annual planning years. Exact dates prorate supported income, contributions, benefits, and main medical transitions, but the annual projection does not establish the order of every payment or transaction within the year.
Inspect transitions instead of household averages
Open Projection and find the final working year, first retirement year, benefit-claiming years, Medicare transitions, required-distribution years, and the first survivor year. Confirm that the expected income and spending streams change for the right person in each transition.
Read survivor years separately. A household can look well funded while both people are alive and become tax- or income-constrained after the first death. Check which pension or Social Security income continues, which accounts remain, and whether spending assumptions change realistically.
When two events occur in the same annual year and their order matters for liquidity, test adjacent years or maintain a separate short-term schedule. An annual result cannot prove that cash is available on a particular day.
Dates do not settle legal or eligibility questions
Current-law basis reviewed through . Rules can change; review this guidance after a relevant law or agency update.
YARCalc does not determine marital status, dependent status, state residency, filing eligibility, the right to receive a benefit, or the legal effect of a separation or court order. Those conclusions depend on current facts and law outside the plan.
Treat annual tax and survivor results as planning estimates. Confirm consequential filing, benefit, estate, and ownership decisions with current authoritative documents and appropriate professional advice.