Set up this plan first. The recommendation runs on your Settings — your pot,
spending need and State Pension — and they're still the defaults, so any answer would be
meaningless. It takes a couple of minutes.
Monthly Entry
Enter your fund values and click Calculate to see your recommendation.
Decision Tool Settings
Your allocation
How do you want to set your allocation?
Your risk level shapes how the SIPP is invested. The ISA is kept separate — it’s the
tax-free bridge, drawn without tax and modelled with its own steady return.
The Decision Tool works from your real portfolio. Add your holdings — each is tagged to a bucket and sub-class (change any of them). Your target allocation updates automatically as you add, edit or remove funds.
Fund
Value £
Wrapper
Category ⓘ
Total pot: —(from your funds)
When on, the Decision Tool's monthly withdrawal and rebalancing advice follows this rising-equity path, and each year's report tells you the target mix to hold.
Spending need
Locked with the plan. "Declining" is level for the first 5 years, then drifts down ~1%/yr for
20 years, then holds — the same spending smile as the Stress tester. In those declining years the
April wizard nets the drop off the inflation uplift (e.g. CPI 2.5% − 1% = a 1.5% target rise).
How you'll take this pension
Do you intend to use your tax-free sum as part of your income, or keep it for
something else? Part of my income models a quarter of every
withdrawal as tax-free (until the £268,275 lifetime allowance is used up);
kept separate models every withdrawal as fully taxable —
the right choice if you’ve already taken your tax-free lump sum.
Note: real UFPLS payments trigger the £10,000 Money Purchase Annual Allowance
(limiting future pension contributions) and are first taxed on an emergency
basis (reclaimable from HMRC). Neither is modelled here.
UFPLS never crystallises the untouched pot, so at the switch 25% of whatever
remains is still available tax-free (up to your remaining £268,275 allowance).
The stress tester moves it into the ISA automatically; the decision tool will
remind you to do it when the year arrives.
Draws extra SIPP up to the 20% band even when your spending doesn't need it, and
moves the net into your ISA (capped at the £20,000/yr ISA allowance) — paying 20%
now so that money comes out tax-free later. Pauses during protection months and
while UFPLS tax-free withdrawals are active.
Found a plan that survives the stress tests? Bring it across — either just the income
target, or the whole setup (funds, allocation, State Pension, ISA, protection, glide).
You still review and Save before anything locks.
Protection
Protection Mode: Triggers after consecutive cash draws. Reduces withdrawal by the protection factor until growth funds recover above minimums + recovery buffer.
Select a month to view details
Select a tax year to view details
Set up this plan first. Simulations run on your Settings — your pots,
spending need and State Pension — and they're still the defaults, so any result would be
meaningless. It takes a couple of minutes.
Monte Carlo Simulation
1,000 scenarios using randomly sampled historical returns (1928-2024).
Starting balances come from your Settings (Fund Minimums). Edit them in the Settings tab.
Historical Sequence Analysis
Tests your strategy against every possible starting year from 1928-2024.
Starting balances come from your Settings (Fund Minimums). Edit them in the Settings tab.
Stress Scenarios
Tests against specific historical crises: Great Depression, 1970s Stagflation, 2008 GFC, etc.
Starting balances come from your Settings (Fund Minimums). Edit them in the Settings tab.
SIPP Drawdown Schedule
Projected annual SIPP withdrawals based on your settings.
Glidepath Visualization
Shows how fund minimums decline over time with inflation adjustment.
Stress Tester Settings
Spending need
Net, not gross: enter the money you actually want in your pocket each month
(or year), in today's money — tax is handled for you. This is the total from all sources:
SIPP withdrawals, ISA, other pensions and State Pension.
How you'll take this pension
Do you intend to use your tax-free sum as part of your income, or keep it for
something else? Part of my income models a quarter of every
withdrawal as tax-free (until the £268,275 lifetime allowance is used up);
kept separate models every withdrawal as fully taxable —
the right choice if you’ve already taken your tax-free lump sum.
Note: real UFPLS payments trigger the £10,000 Money Purchase Annual Allowance
(limiting future pension contributions) and are first taxed on an emergency
basis (reclaimable from HMRC). Neither is modelled here.
UFPLS never crystallises the untouched pot, so at the switch 25% of whatever
remains is still available tax-free (up to your remaining £268,275 allowance).
The stress tester moves it into the ISA automatically; the decision tool will
remind you to do it when the year arrives.
Draws extra SIPP up to the 20% band even when your spending doesn't need it, and
moves the net into your ISA (capped at the £20,000/yr ISA allowance) — paying 20%
now so that money comes out tax-free later. Pauses during protection months and
while UFPLS tax-free withdrawals are active.
Your allocation
How do you want to set your allocation?
Suggest from longevity:
Planning to the average means a 50% chance of outliving the plan — a survival
percentile is safer. Approximate ONS-style cohort figures.
Your risk level shapes how the SIPP is invested. The ISA is kept separate — it’s the
tax-free bridge, drawn without tax and modelled with its own steady return.
Carves a slice into assets that tend to hold up or rise when shares fall. Tail protection, not a free lunch — run it and compare.
Add your holdings — each fund is tagged to a bucket and sub-class (change any of them). Your allocation updates automatically as you add, edit or remove funds.
Fund
Value £
Wrapper
Category ⓘ
Total pot: —(from your funds)
Holds least in shares when the pot is largest and most exposed to an early crash, then raises shares once that danger passes (Pfau-Kitces). Typically helps the worst cases but can slightly lower typical growth — run it and compare. Your risk level stays the average.
Glidepath: Equity & Bond minimums inflate with CPI but deplete linearly to £0. Cash inflates only (maintains real value).
Tax thresholds (year 0)
SIPP Calculation: SIPP Draw = Target Income - Other Pensions - State Pension
(But never more than the Basic Rate Limit, to avoid 40% tax)
Other income (year 0)
A final-salary / defined-benefit pension is a guaranteed income floor — the sims
draw less from your pots once it starts. In the Decision Tool, enter DB income you
actually receive in each tax year's "Other income" (it works on actuals).
State Pension
Pension Inflation:
• Other Income/Pension: Follows CPI, capped at 4% per year
• State Pension: Follows CPI (triple-lock proxy)
Start from your Decision plan
Protection
Break Glass HODL (emergency reserve)
Break Glass Reserve: Emergency fund only accessed when main strategy would otherwise fail.
Spending
Real spending typically falls through retirement (Blanchett's "spending smile"). "Declining" holds spending level for the first 5 years, drifts down ~1%/yr for the next 20, then holds (a ~18% real fall in mid-retirement — gentler than a straight-line drop). Flat is the pessimistic default. Late-life care costs are not auto-added.
Accumulation Planner — am I saving enough?
Net-first, like everything here: say what you can spare from take-home pay and this
works out the gross pension purchase under your scheme's tax relief, projects the pot
to retirement (FCA low/mid/high rates, in today's money), and checks it against
your own budget-derived target — not a rule of thumb.
Runs your ACTUAL Stress-Tester plan (budget-derived target, allocation, State
Pension, access method) through the Monte Carlo to find the pot that gives
85% success — then compares your projection against it.
Not financial advice. Annual Allowance £60,000 (tapers above £200k income; £10,000
MPAA once flexible income has been taken); minimum pension age rises to 57 on
6 April 2028; salary-sacrifice NI relief capped at £2,000/yr from April 2029.
Household — will the money last for both of you?
Your Stress Tester answers "will my money last?". If you're a couple,
that's only half the question: your incomes start in different years, your pensions are
different sizes, and you share the spending. This tab joins your two plans
together and answers the question neither can answer alone —
can we retire, together, and when is the money tight?
The two plans
No plan for them yet?
How it works
Your plan is already set up — budget, pots, State Pension, all of it.
Give your partner a plan of their own. Open the plan menu (▾ at the top),
create a plan in their name, and fill in their Stress Tester settings — their pots,
their State Pension date, and their share of the household budget (the Budget tool's
per-person split gives you each side's number).
Pick their plan above and run the check.
You'll get three things you can't see from either plan alone:
One answer: the percentage of 1,000 possible market futures in which the money
lasted for both of you — run through the same markets, because a crash hits
you both in the same year.
One timeline: year by year, what the household needs, when each State Pension
starts, and how much has to come out of the pots — including the tight
"bridge" years before your State Pensions arrive.
One number for what's left: your combined pots over time, in today's money,
if markets are poor, typical, or strong.
Why two plans and not one joint plan? UK pensions, ISAs and tax are strictly individual —
two personal allowances, two State Pensions, two sets of pots. Keeping a plan each gets the
tax right; this tab puts the answers side by side. Your own plan's tabs are unchanged.
Budget — your spending plan
Enter what you expect to spend, in today's money. We total it into your
essential (the floor that must always be covered) and comfortable
(your target) monthly take-home — then you can push that to your plan's target income.
Horizon
Sharing with a partner
— optional
Mark each line Me / Partner / Shared. Your plan only funds your share — costs your
partner covers (their shopping, their car) drop out of your target but still show in the household total.
Change who pays over time (optional — e.g. "I pay 70% until her pension starts at 63, then 50/50")
Each row: from the age given, your share of "Shared" costs becomes the new percentage.
Before the first row, the percentage above applies. Your plan's per-year target follows this automatically.
What are you aiming for?
— sets every typical-£ suggestion below
The PLSA Retirement Living Standards: Minimum covers the essentials (no car,
UK holiday); Moderate adds a car and two weeks in Europe;
Comfortable adds more of everything. Suggestions only — your numbers win.
New to budgeting? The guided walk-through takes you category by category with
typical UK figures, a built-in calculator and tips on what changes at retirement.
ONS retired-household averages (FYE2023) — a starting point, adjust everything.
Essential spending
— the floor that must always be covered (housing, bills, food, transport, health)
Essential subtotal: —/yr
Lifestyle spending
— nice-to-haves on top (holidays, eating out, hobbies, gifts)
Lifestyle subtotal: —/yr
One-off & periodic costs
— a car every few years, a new roof, a big trip, helping the kids
Did you miss anything?
— the biggest budgeting mistake is leaving things out. Tap to add.