Income adjustments add money to the portfolio in years they apply. Each type has slightly different defaults. Taxability, freeze-until-retirement availability, and which life events can anchor its timing.

Take-Home Salary (deprecated)

Job

Wage or salary income that is fully taxable in the year earned. Use this for primary jobs, side income, contract work, or any W-2 / 1099 inflow during working years.

Employment Income typically ends at the retirement year, but you can extend it (semi-retirement) or end it earlier (sabbatical, planned exit). When paired with retirement-account contributions in Cash Flow Priorities, this is the source the engine uses to fund 401(k), IRA, and HSA caps.

Pension

A recurring inflow that typically starts at or after a person's retirement year. Pensions are usually fully taxable as ordinary income at withdrawal. Many pensions are not inflation adjusted, so use the Not Inflation-Adjusted setting if your plan is fixed.

The Freeze Value Until Retirement option keeps the entered amount flat until its start year, so the year-1 payout matches what you typed instead of being scaled up by pre-start inflation.

Social Security

A recurring inflow tied to a claim age. Social Security is partially taxable based on combined income; the engine applies the standard provisional-income calculation each year. You can model spousal claims independently when there are two people.

Use the start-age control to model claiming early (62), at full retirement age, or delayed (up to 70). The engine does not auto-optimize claim age. It models exactly what you enter.

Custom Income — periodic windfalls

Use a Custom Income with the "Occurs at regular intervals" toggle to model lumpy inflows that repeat on a fixed cadence — royalty distributions every 3 years, a milestone bonus every 5 years. Set Repeat every (years) to the cadence; the income fires in the Start Year and again every N years through the End Year, inheriting the same inflation rule (CPI, Flat Rate, or none). The toggle isn't offered for Job, Side Hustle, Pension, or Social Security — those types are inherently continuous.

Other Income

A flexible inflow for anything that does not fit the categories above: rental income, royalties, annuity payments, or a planned windfall. Choose the inflation rule and tax treatment per the income's real-world behavior. For example, an inherited Roth distribution might be flagged Treat as post-tax.

Side Hustle

A recurring secondary income stream. Consulting on the side, freelance work, a small online business. Defaults to flat-rate growth (2% / yr) and is taxed as ordinary income in the year earned, just like a Job. Use it when you have income that runs alongside a primary salary or that continues into semi-retirement on a different timeline than your main job.

If a side hustle is significant enough to drive retirement-account contributions, treat it like a Job (Employment Income) instead so payroll tax and contribution-cap logic kicks in. Side Hustle is best for smaller, taxable cash inflows that don't need that machinery.

Inheritance

A one-time influx of cash arriving in a single future year. By default Inheritance is treated as taxable income in the year received. Flag Treat as post-tax if the money is already net of tax (e.g. a Roth IRA inheritance withdrawn over the 10-year window, or cash from a spouse's estate that is not taxable to you).

Inheritance is one-time, not recurring, so the start year and end year are the same. It is deposited into the simulation's cash flow that year and then routed by the Cash Flow Priorities rules. Any leftover surplus is handled by the Save-vs-Spend selector on the Cash Flow tab - in Save mode (the default) it lands in your brokerage account; in Spend mode it counts as discretionary spending.

Spending Reduction

Not technically income. Spending Reduction represents money you choose not to spend. The simulation models it as a recurring offset against base living expenses, so the practical effect on the portfolio is the same as a recurring inflow of equal size: less needs to be withdrawn each year.

Use it for plan changes that shrink your retirement spending without changing your Base Living Expenses figure: downsizing to a cheaper house, dropping a country-club membership, or moving to a lower-cost-of-living area in year five. The recurrence and start / end years let you scope exactly when the reduction applies.