The Proof view shows the simulation result. Read it from the top down: success rate first, then chart shape, then year-by-year drill-downs when something looks off.

Top-level read

Main chart: by default, this opens on the Portfolio Min / Max / Median summary view in today's dollars.

What the default chart means: it overlays many historical cycles into percentile bands, so you can see the typical path (middle lines) and the spread between better and worse outcomes each year.

How to read it: the center line is the typical outcome, the surrounding percentile bands show uncertainty, and optional min / max outliers show extreme tails.

Success rate: percent of cycles that do not deplete.

Statistics summary: average, median, high, and low outcomes for portfolio, spending, and taxes.

Ending Portfolio vs Ending Net Worth: the headline is the liquid portfolio. When the plan holds real estate, a loan, or a HELOC, a Net Worth control appears under the chart; ticking Include real estate and debt in net worth switches the headline to Ending Net Worth (portfolio plus property equity, minus loan and HELOC balances) and adds the net worth line to the chart. With the box off, the Ending Portfolio figure is unchanged by any debt you carry.

Chart controls

Metric

Portfolio or Spending.

Base Spending vs All Spending

Appears under the Metric control while Spending is selected.

• Base Spending (the default). Your Base Living Expenses alone. This is the number a variable spending plan (VPW, CAPE, guardrails, Retirement Smile) actually moves in response to markets, so it is the line to watch when you want to see the plan working.
• All Spending. Base Living Expenses plus every expense adjustment on top: one-off expenses, ACA Healthcare net premiums, real estate operating cash flow, mortgage and HELOC payments, tuition, and so on. Large lumpy adjustments can dominate this line and hide what the spending plan is doing.

Neither position includes taxes. Taxes paid are tracked separately and appear in the Year-by-Year modal and the Statistics summary, not on the spending chart.

The choice applies to the current session and is not saved. If a plan has no expense adjustments, both positions plot the same line.

Chart type

• Min / Max / Median. Percentile summary across all cycles for each year. Best for understanding range and consistency over time. A plan on Constant Returns and Constant Inflation runs as a single cycle, so this chart, Spending vs Returns and Rich, Broke, or Dead are withheld, the Statistics Summary shows one Result row instead of a spread, and the success rate reads 0% or 100%.
• Time Series. Draws all cycles as separate shifted lines. Best for seeing each historical path on the same chart.
• Individual Cycles. One cycle at a time, selected with the cycle slider. Best for deep-diving a specific historical sequence.
• Spending vs Returns. Compares average annual spending and average annual returns. Best for checking whether withdrawals and market support are aligned over time.

Outliers

In Min / Max / Median, toggles visibility of extreme Min / Max lines that can visually skew the range.

Net Worth

Appears when the plan has real estate or a loan or HELOC balance. Include real estate and debt in net worth overlays property equity and total net worth (liquid plus property equity, minus loan and HELOC balances) on the portfolio chart and switches the headline to Ending Net Worth.

Cycle slider

Appears in Individual Cycles and Year-by-Year analysis to select a specific historical start period.

Year-by-Year modal

Cycle slider: picks which historical return sequence is being replayed (the UI shows its historical data start year).

Simulation Year slider: picks which year inside that selected cycle you are inspecting.

Account Changes: Starting / ending balances by account with drill-down details about deposits, withdrawals, taxes, and rebalancing actions for that year.

Events: Income, withdrawals, taxes, and adjustments for that year.

This Year's Plan (Pro): the third tab of the modal, which reads the selected year back as a plain-language to-do list. See Action Plan.

Cash Flow card

Above the events list, the Cash Flow card summarizes every dollar that came in and went out that year. In today's dollars, so successive years stay comparable. A toggle in the header lets you switch between two views; both read from the same numbers.

Table view

Two columns side-by-side:

• Sources (Total In): Net Job Cash, Other Income (Pension, Social Security, side hustle, etc.), Rental Cash Flow, Dividends Used (capped at the spending need so pre-retirement years don't over-credit), Tax Refund (last year's payroll withholding came in higher than the tax you actually owed, so the difference came back this year), and Withdrawals from any account.
• Uses (Total Out): Base Spending (the Spending category's drill-down names the spending plan that ran that year and shows its arithmetic, plus any floor or ceiling, What-If change, or survivor reduction applied to it), Extra Spending (one-off adjustments like Vacation, ACA Healthcare, etc.), Discretionary Spending (only in Spend mode - see below), Real Estate (mortgage / property tax / insurance / maintenance), Taxes (or "Taxes Not Withheld" when payroll already covered some), Contributions to retirement accounts, Debt Paydown (surplus a Cash Flow Priority sent at a loan or HELOC balance, named for the loan), and Surplus Deposited (anything left over swept into a non-retirement account).

Total In should equal Total Out. If they're off, look at the Surplus Deposited line. That's where the simulation puts excess cash (RMD overflow, dividend spillover, bracket-fill overshoot, ACA reconciliation refunds).

Discretionary Spending only appears when the Cash Flow tab's Save-vs-Spend selector is set to Spend excess cashflow. It captures any surplus left over after the user's Cash Flow Priorities run - cash the simulation drops rather than reinvesting. In Save mode (the default) this row is hidden and the same dollars show up under Surplus Deposited instead.

Sankey view

The Sankey chart visualizes the same totals as a flow diagram: every income source on the left feeds into a central After-Tax Cash node, which then fans out to the spending uses on the right. Band thickness is proportional to dollar amount, so the dominant cash flows of the year are immediately visible.

• Green bands are inflows, contributions, and surplus deposited back into accounts.
• Red bands are withdrawals, taxes, and all expense categories (Base Spending, Extra Spending, Real Estate, and - in Spend mode - Discretionary).
• Emerald is rental cash flow; sky blue is dividend income that covered spending.
• Debt Paydown is its own node between Expenses and Investments: surplus a Cash Flow Priority sent at a loan or HELOC balance. It is neither spending nor an investment, so it never inflates either pivot.

Hover any band for the source → destination amount and the percentage of total inflows it represents. Tiny residuals under $10 (real) are hidden so floating-point drift doesn't surface as a phantom Surplus.

Open button (Pro): the small expand button on the Sankey card pops the chart into a fullscreen modal with a more detailed 5-column layout. Per-job, per-income-source, and per-account-withdrawal sources on the left; per-adjustment, per-account-deposit sinks on the right; and Cycle / Simulation Year sliders so you can scrub years without leaving the chart.

Tax notes

• Filing logic: one person uses single-filer assumptions; two people uses married-jointly assumptions.
• Inflation: tax brackets are inflation-adjusted in the model.
• Source breakdown: in the Events list, the Taxes section's Federal Income, Long-term Capital Gains, and State Income lines expand to show how that tax is split across the income sources that drove it. The dollar figure is the tax attributed to each source; hover a row to see the underlying taxable income. (Because brackets are progressive, the per-source split is a proportional estimate, but the rows always add up to the line total.)
• Interpretation tip: compare total taxes vs spending across low-end cycles.