Reading your results

The verdict is the first figure. It says “Funded” when the money lasts the lifetimes the plan runs to, or names the tax year it first falls short.

After it come the other figures: lifetime spending, what is left at the end, tax over the plan, planned spending in retirement, your pots at retirement and the rate drawn from them. Each money figure shows the future amount with the same amount in today’s money beneath it.

The timeline draws the same plan as dates: when each of you stops work, when the State Pension starts, how spending is phased, and where the money runs short if it does.

Then the charts. Start with how spending is funded, which shows where each year’s money came from. The sentences that explain a chart sit under its Detail row, closed until you open it.

The bridge is the stretch between stopping work and your last pension starting. A faint band covers its years. Green means the bridge is funded and the money you can draw on, your savings, investments, ISAs and that year’s pension draws, covers your emergency fund. Red means it falls short. Spending is still paid for, with less held back than you chose. The stress test says how often the bridge held.

Assets over time stacks the pots the plan can draw on. Where your plan holds a home, a second version of that chart adds its equity, kept apart because the plan never draws on a house. Both name their total for the year you point at.