Show HN: I made a retirement simulator: 125 years of data, 25 countries

nhootan

I got tired of retirement calculators that either assume one fixed return forever, or run Monte Carlo by pulling each year independently out of a bell curve. Real markets don't behave like that. Bad years cluster, and a crash in your first three years of retirement is a completely different problem from the same crash at 85. So this one samples multi-year blocks out of actual history instead: 25 countries, 1900 to 2025, reassembled into thousands of possible futures. It's a stationary block bootstrap, which is the standard approach in the lifecycle-investing literature. When a plan fails it tells you which way it failed, whether that was weak growth, bad sequencing, or inflation at the wrong moment. Canada and the US have full tax and benefit modelling (RRSP/TFSA and CPP/OAS on one side, 401(k)/IRA and Social Security on the other). Everywhere else you get a pre-tax projection. If you're in the EU or UK you can run the Quick Check, but you can't sign up yet, because I haven't finished the compliance work. There's no account linking, and the Quick Check needs no signup at all. The methodology is written up at /methodology. It's an educational tool, not financial advice. It's free right now. Paid plans come later, and there's a founding rate if you want to lock one in early: $50/year for as long as you stay subscribed, first 50 people. https://buy.stripe.com/14A7sN6Gycny54rdXv5Rm01 Nothing is gated behind it today.

drop_star

Why do I need to sign into everything these days? The moment I see that I close the site.

memoryleakgame

So its a monte carlo simulation but I can't enter growth rate country time horizons or anything like that? Brother I have a better claude code vibe app than this in an hour You need to really talk to a financial planner and learn what the proper inputs are

bluGill

This doesn't know the important part. Will I live to 62 as the earliest of my ancestors died, or 98 as the latest? My family history is about average for lifespan but that is a big difference. If I live to 62 I should retire at 50 - or perhaps I shouldn't have bothered saving at all since the growth isn't there. Of medical advances make me love to 150 I should save until I'm 80 which will be a nice income to really enjoy the rest of my life. I want more defined benefit accounts, but they are hard to find

betaby

Better be safe I guess: Foresight Planner is not yet available in your region. We're launching in Canada (excluding Quebec) first. We don't yet support Quebec, because we don't yet offer the product in French. If you'd like us to let you know when we expand, email hi@foresightplanner.com. Foresight Planner n'est pas encore disponible dans votre région. Nous lançons d'abord au Canada (hors Québec). Pour être informé·e de l'élargissement de notre service, écrivez à hi@foresightplanner.com. Region: CA-QC

jawns

I got 82.4% regardless of whether I started with a portfolio value of $1M or $3M. Something is wrong with the calculations/simulations. If I can't trust the Quick Check, why would I trust anything else on the site?

BretonForearm

Why not let people try it from abroad? Not in the USA? No luck. Why does the withdrawal rate need to be a multiple of 0.5%? It's curious that the highest chance was associated with the highest (100%) stock ratio.

rachelb1331

I didn't want to put in my email address in order to access the detailed calculator... The quick check doesn't have nearly enough information to give anyone an idea of what actually to expect...

bryanlarsen

It's really nice to see a simulator that removes the home country bias. So many of these types of simulations use American data. But that's pretty extreme cherry-picking: America has had a pretty exceptional run these last 100+ years. Any retirement simulator cannot assume that America's exceptional growth will continue. Maybe it will, but you cannot plan on a maybe.

fusslo

huh, yesterday I vibe coded a similar tool. It lets me set my current savings, investment, retirement. Expected yearly savings, expected number of years of work left. After retirement, only withdrawals are allowed (investments, savings still get returns tho) Codex suggested a bunch of improvements: monte carlo, investment volatility, expense inflation, capital gains tax etc. One thing codex didn't ask about was social security. So that's another factor that could be improved. I wanted to know 'do I really need to work 30 more years?' What would be really interesting is discovering an attainable formula where my investments outpace my expenses. Or, what variables let me die with basically $0 in the bank At the end, I realized I had no idea what the calculator was REALLY doing. So it could be right... it could be really wrong too. Having historical data might help solve those issues