Free Tools
Eleven educational tools, open to everyone. No signup, no email capture, and nothing you enter is stored on our servers.
How expansions, peaks, recessions, and recoveries shape markets — the economic backdrop behind the Multi-Cycle approach, explained in plain English.
See what today's money would cost, and buy, after years of inflation at one rate you choose. One constant rate, compounded every year: arithmetic, not a forecast. Nothing you enter is stored.
Solve for the future value, the starting amount, the contribution, the rate of return, or the time: enter four and it finds the fifth. Contributions can be added or taken out, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, with a year-by-year table. Arithmetic at one steady rate you choose, not a forecast. Nothing you enter is stored.
How mixing different investments changes the size of the swings. Build a mix of stocks, bonds, commodities, alternatives, and cash, and see why a diversified portfolio usually swings less than its pieces suggest, what a typical year looks like around an assumed average, and what the swings cost in compounded growth. Assumptions, not forecasts.
See a retirement balance drawn down year by year under a first-year withdrawal rate, a return, and an inflation rate you choose, under the classic 4% rule: the first-year dollars, raised with inflation every year. An illustration under your assumptions, not a forecast. One steady return cannot show sequence of returns risk, and the page says so first. Nothing you enter is stored.
U.S. household financial statistics — income, savings, net worth, and more — so you can put your own numbers in context instead of guessing how you compare.
Where should you retire? A questionnaire for choosing where to live, now or in retirement, with a short path for a retirement move: 8 questions, about two minutes. Say how much taxes, living costs, weather, hospitals, safety, and more matter to you, and see the 50 states and D.C. ranked with the published facts behind every one. General education, not tax, legal, or investment advice, and not a recommendation to move or to stay. Your answers stay in your browser.
What the gap between two wedding budgets could grow into. Enter the wedding you are picturing and a smaller one you could live with, pick an age and an assumed growth rate, and see what the difference could become, before inflation. A hypothetical illustration of compounding, not a projection of any investment; the all-stocks preset uses the S&P 500's historical return since 1926, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. Your entries stay in your browser.
Its second tab is a simple wedding budget calculator: split a total across the big categories and see the cost per guest. The starting split is an example to edit, not a national average.
The core estate planning documents in plain English: what a will, a revocable living trust, an irrevocable trust, powers of attorney, a living will, a HIPAA authorization, and beneficiary designations each do and do not do, with revocable and irrevocable trusts side by side and the 2026 federal and state estate tax figures. General education, not legal, tax, or investment advice; we do not practice law or prepare legal documents. Your answers stay in your browser.
How often the four largest AI labs ship major models. A vendor-neutral timeline of major AI model releases from public announcements, with each lab's recent cadence. Labs are listed alphabetically, and every figure is computed from the release dates. A projection is a description of recent rhythm, not a forecast, and nothing on the page is a prediction about any company's products or stock.
The planning platform's full data-handling disclosure, published where anyone can read it — what is collected, who touches it, what our AI provider does and doesn't see.
These tools are educational only — they are not investment advice and make no recommendations. Curious how AI fits into the full platform? Read how our AI-assisted planning works.
Explainers
Short educational explainers. Each one answers the question first, shows the arithmetic with a hypothetical example, and points to a free tool where you can try it yourself.
Why two retirees with the same average return can end far apart, and what makes the risk larger or smaller.
What the research actually says, what it assumes, and how rigid and flexible withdrawal rules trade a steady paycheck against a steady balance.
It changes the size of the swings, not their direction. The arithmetic of mixing investments, shown step by step.
Eight causes and which way each one pushes. Why the causes can be reasoned about while the total cannot be reliably forecast.
Plain answers on which advisors are fiduciaries, whether a CFP® professional is one, how advisors get paid, how to check a background on BrokerCheck, questions to ask, and red flags.
The full planning platform is free too, by approval. Request access, and once you're approved you'll see your complete financial picture, not a demo.