Set up your retirement plan with guided setup

Guided setup walks you through your retirement plan one plain-language question at a time, instead of handing you every settings card at once. It uses the same fields as Plan settings, so anything you enter here shows up there too, and the other way around.

Before you start

• Retirement planning is a Pro feature (included in the 30-day trial).
• You need permission to update retirement settings. A spouse set to View only doesn't see guided setup.
• It helps to have your income, retirement accounts, home, debts, and any businesses already entered — guided setup points you to add them if they're missing, but works either way.

Steps

1. Go to Retirement (opens in a new tab). On your first visit, Retirement setup opens on its own.
2. On the Before you start screen, check the list under For the most accurate plan, fill these in first (spouse or partner, income, retirement savings, your home, debts, businesses). Click Add next to anything missing, or click Get started to move on.
3. Answer the Basics questions in order: when you stop working, Social Security, how long to plan for, growth and prices, extra spending, health insurance, and how to test your plan. Each screen shows the question in plain words, the expert term in small text, what it means, and an example with real numbers.
4. On the Basics done screen, choose Finish, use defaults for the rest or Continue to Advanced.
5. If you continue, answer the Advanced questions: pensions, annuities, your home, your business, taxes, long-term care, and what if you saved more. A step that depends on data you haven't entered shows a note with a link to add it; Next becomes Skip this step until you do.
6. On any question, click Not sure? Use our suggestion to reset that step's choices to Beyond Payday's defaults. This never deletes pensions or annuities you've already entered.
7. Click See my plan on the All done screen, or Finish later at any point to stop and pick up where you left off.

How it works

• Desktop shows a step list on the left, split into Basics and Advanced — click any step to jump straight to it. Phones show a bottom sheet with a progress bar; tap the step name under the question to open a menu and jump to any step.
• The footer shows Your plan right now — a live line like "Your money lasts past age 95" or "Your money could run out around age 84" — so you see the effect of each answer immediately.
• Every answer saves as you go, the same autosave as Plan settings. Closing partway through (Finish later, or the X) keeps your place; reopening Guided setup picks up at the same step.
• A step that needs data from another page — a spouse's birthday, income, a home, retirement accounts, a business — shows a note with a link. Some of these block the step's fields until the data exists (for example, a business); others just note that the data is missing and let you continue.
• Once everyone in the plan is retired, the What if you saved more? step drops out of the list, since there are no paychecks left to save from.

Good to know

• Opens once, then it's up to you. Guided setup opens on its own only on your first visit to the Retirement page, or when you come back after leaving mid-setup to add missing data elsewhere. After that, reopen it any time with the Guided setup button next to Save report.
• Per person, not per family. Whether guided setup has opened, and where you left off, is saved to your own account — a spouse's progress is tracked separately.
• Same fields, two views. Guided setup and the Plan settings panel read and write the same retirement settings. Changing something in one place shows up in the other.
• The demo is browsable but never pushy. On /demo/retirement, guided setup never opens on its own, and any answer you try to save hits the same sign-up prompt as the rest of the demo.
• Pro members can ask Beth general questions about retirement planning concepts while working through guided setup — see How the retirement projection works.