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Explore Your Work Options

Explore Your Work Options: Methodology

Understand the approach, what your result can tell you, and where judgment still matters.

Current tool · Version 1.1.8

The life to fund, not just the salary to replace

Separate employment value from your replacement need

The CLEAR framework brings together Compensation, Lifestyle, Earnings, Assets, and Readiness. Current pay and saving contributions provide context, while the spending, replacement benefits, and future saving goals you choose establish what the alternative arrangement needs to fund.

The tool accounts for other income and illustrates how an available investment portfolio could contribute under your selected withdrawal and tax assumptions. It then shows the remaining dependence on paid work and how a work option changes the gap.

Reading your replacement plan

Lifestyle and saving goals
Living costs and replacement coverage are separated from the saving commitments you want to retain. Replacing gross salary is not automatically the goal.
Portfolio targets and gaps
Illustrations show the assets implied by the spending need under selected assumptions, with and without continued work. They do not establish a safe withdrawal policy.
Remaining work income
The result identifies the after-tax work income still needed under the portfolio illustration and compares it with your proposed work option.
Readiness and timing
Optional leave-now, six-month, and twelve-month comparisons show what your entered transition assumptions change. They are scenarios, not predictions of market or job conditions.
Assumptions and information to check

Use the same household in both arrangements and enter amounts in US dollars. Take-home pay and other spendable income should be after tax. Keep replacement healthcare and other benefits distinct from ordinary spending so they are not counted twice.

The current tool shows starting-year withdrawal illustrations at 3%, 3.5%, 4%, and 5%. These are comparison assumptions, not recommended or validated safe rates. The withdrawal-tax percentage is your assumption, not a calculated tax liability. Unknown material inputs keep the affected calculation incomplete.

The main replacement calculation holds goals and income constant in today’s dollars. It does not model inflation, market-return sequences, or future benefit-start dates. Optional timing comparisons hold investment growth at zero and compare entered saving, qualifying payouts, and required withdrawals at one common twelve-month endpoint; they do not turn the result into a lifetime forecast.

Employer-paid benefits are optional context. Your actual cost of replacing coverage matters to funding the new arrangement. Do not count the same portfolio income both as other income and as part of portfolio withdrawals.

You can save a separate comparison using your own lower and higher replacement-coverage estimates. It holds the saved assessment's other assumptions fixed and shows whether annual funding has a gap at either endpoint. These estimates have no assigned probabilities, do not change the original result, and are not insurance quotes or a tax/subsidy calculation.

Changelog

A brief public record of what changed. Calculation details and security-sensitive implementation information are intentionally excluded.

View version history
  1. Version 1.1.8 Kept progress labels on one line and removed the overview detour above guided questions.
  2. Version 1.1.7 Combined result history and saved assessments with draft rows and direct history navigation.
  3. Version 1.1.6 Standardized result actions and added community discussion cards beside relevant findings.
  4. Version 1.1.5 Added downloadable saved reports and clearer currency fields and comparison forms.
  5. Version 1.1.4 Clarified input warnings and made interrupted saves easier to recover from.
  6. Version 1.1.3 Centered the mobile menu control and kept the Toolkit name visible when space allows.
  7. Version 1.1.2 Kept typing focus in place when background saving displays a warning.
  8. Version 1.1.1 Added clearer navigation, version history, and more useful contextual guidance.
  9. Version 1.1.0 Added replacement-cost ranges, fuller histories, and safer answer recovery.
  10. Version 1.0.6 Clarified and repositioned the public Methodology page.
  11. Version 1.0.5 Added a public explanation of the tool approach and limitations.
  12. Version 1.0.4 Added account preferences and notices when an updated assessment is available.
  13. Version 1.0.3 Added accessible history actions and member-local time displays.
  14. Version 1.0.2 Improved result history, summaries, and duplicate-run grouping.
  15. Version 1.0.1 Added shared guided progress and Quick Guides.
  16. Version 1.0.0 Established the first public Explore Your Work Options release.

A result you can revisit

This page describes the current tool. An older saved result may use an earlier approach; its saved version and conclusions remain unchanged. Reviewing your answers and completing an updated run creates a new result without rewriting the earlier one.

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