How it works
The tool brings the figures and your reasons together. You choose the next step.
Start with the choice
Compare work you could actually do with an alternative you could choose. Use the same dates and explain what each would protect, offer, and ask you to give up.
The tool follows the September 28, 2026 manuscript. Method 2026-09-28.1. It does not calculate a recommendation from coverage, timing, or a savings target.
Money and a harder year
The tool compares one year, in U.S. dollars after tax. Use the workbook for other periods. Subtract restrictions, access costs, access taxes and funded reserves from owned investments once. Investment support is a supplied annual amount or an explained annual percentage of usable investments.
Resources are continuing income plus investment support. Percentage coverage is resources divided by essential spending, which must be greater than zero, multiplied by 100. Dollar margin is resources minus essentials once. A negative margin is an uncovered need.
Coverage describes the selected year. It does not establish how long the money will last or whether full retirement is affordable. Record the longer period the plan must support, changing costs and any surviving household member.
The book illustrates harder years by changing spending, continuing income and investments together: +5%, 0%, −10%; +10%, −5%, −15%; or +15%, −10%, −25%. You can supply another case and explain its basis. These are illustrations, not forecasts. A directly supplied support amount needs its own rougher estimate.
If the harder year changes work pay, costs, benefits or available help, update those assumptions too. Explain amounts held unchanged. Keep both margins visible and describe a response that would remain available during the same difficulty.
Activity and timing
Describe what the activity needs, what you can do now, recovery, support and other people’s participation. A summary of your ability does not choose a work arrangement.
Use a range only when you can explain both endpoints. Divide the proposed delay by the longer estimate, then by the shorter estimate. Multiply each result by 100 to show the percentages. The delay must be zero or more; both endpoints must be positive and use the same units.
A one-year delay is 20% of five years and 50% of two years. These shares describe the assumptions. They are not probabilities, deadlines or thresholds for changing work. Keep each activity separate. The shortest range does not determine which matters most.
When timing is unknown, leave the percentage unanswered and describe what waiting might change.
What work adds
Compare each work option with the same year without its pay. Subtract work costs from income available to spend after estimated tax. Use positive earnings once: meet the annual essential gap, then save what remains. Negative earnings create an additional need.
Add separate employee retirement value, employer value and one-time gains or costs, counting each amount once. Keep cash and value unavailable for current spending identifiable. Future annual pension or other income changes stay separate, with the first payment date. They are not added to the work-year total.
Show the total before assumed growth. To include growth, record the withdrawals actually avoided, the amount left invested and how long it remains there. This tool uses a simple annual rate multiplied by that amount and its holding period, up to one year. Missing growth assumptions leave the total with growth unknown.
Nate and Nancy’s example has $57,008 before growth. An assumed 2.5% on $15,250 left invested for a full year adds $381.25, giving $57,389.25. A future annual pension increase of $3,600, $600 or zero leaves that work-year total unchanged.
What the money can do
Name the purpose, full target, amount available for it and date needed. Exclude value you cannot use by then. Cash for a reserve can differ from the combined financial gain.
Divide the positive amount available by the positive target and multiply by 100. Show what remains and any extra. Display percentages to one decimal place while calculating with the full amounts. If availability or the target is unknown, progress remains unknown. A loss stays visible and makes no positive progress.
For a recurring gap, dividing the annual shortfall by a stated annual support rate illustrates an additional capital amount. Compare it with money actually available to invest and review the longer plan. Covering this year’s bills and supporting future years are separate questions.
Your decision record
The full record has fourteen fields. It gathers the financial cases, activities, work, timing, reasons for each available choice, your preference, uncertainty, next action and review. Continue the present work, change part of it, leave the role or prepare before deciding: explain what supports your choice.
The short discussion uses fields 1, 11, 12, 13 and 14. It identifies a question and a next step without becoming a financial assessment. Missing information stays unanswered.
To test an assumption, keep the original comparison beside the revised amounts. Explain whether your reason changes. No percentage assigns a recommendation.
Sources and review
The worksheets are an author-developed way to organize a decision, not a validated recommendation formula. Important amounts need a source, date and person who can confirm them. The book’s notes explain the research behind its discussion.
A tax professional can estimate after-tax amounts, a benefits specialist can confirm payment dates, and an employer can confirm offered terms. Bring a clinician a question about a particular activity, or an adviser a question about authority and transfer terms. Then update the answer that depends on what you learn.