Build a SHTF plan

SHTF plan helps you prepare for when sh*t hits the fan. Start with your household's current income, bills, and cash on hand, then choose changes from a list, easiest first, to see how far you would need to go as things get harder. Nothing you plan here is carried out for you: your bills, accounts and debts stay exactly as they are.

The account owner and spouse/partner can use it when they hold the SHTF plan permission and read access to income, bills, and assets — a child can never be granted it, even from Custom permissions. Open SHTF plan (opens in a new tab) under Planning tools in the sidebar, with the subtitle Your worst-case emergency plan. If its shortcut is hidden, use Customize menu to show it or open the direct link (this also hides it if you no longer have the permission). With read access but not update access to the SHTF plan, the page opens with a permanent "View only — changes aren’t saved" bar: you can still try changes on the page, but nothing saves, Reset to saved plan clears what you tried, and leaving the page drops it too.

The page is a three-step wizard on the left, with the answer on the right: 1. What happens?, 2. What would you change? and 3. Your checklist. Only one step is open at a time. Each step header is a button with a number (a tick once you have visited it and it holds something), a title and, when closed, a one-line summary and Edit. Choosing an open header closes it, and each step ends with Back and a Next button. The answer stays in view as you scroll. On a phone or tablet it is a green, red or amber bar pinned to the bottom of the screen, above Beth’s button; tap it to open the full card. Your first visit with nothing entered opens step 1, otherwise step 2.

Above the steps sits Your four plans (hint: "Pick one to see it and change it."), a row of four cards, two by two on a phone. Each card shows that plan's own answer, such as "Lasts all 12 months", "Runs out in Feb 2027" or "Dips below your cushion in Jul 2027", or "Nothing entered yet", plus how many changes it holds ("3 changes" or "No changes yet"). Pick a card and the whole page, the steps and the answer, switches to that plan. The arrow keys move between plans.

Current income includes enabled recurring sources active today in your saved account time zone when available, otherwise your browser’s, within any saved start/end dates. The baseline refreshes when that day changes. Future, ended and one-time entries do not raise that baseline.

Step 1: What happens?

Step 1 opens with the plan you picked in the row above and what it means, such as "High inflation: Prices climb faster than pay." The four plans are:

1. High inflation
2. Temporary loss of income
3. Long-term loss of income
4. The world is ending

Each plan starts from your actual numbers. Choosing one does not automatically reduce your income or raise your expenses. Under the plan name, one plain sentence sums up the chosen plan: your pay, when normal pay is back, the price change, your starting cash, your cushion if you set one, and how far ahead the plan looks from which month.

Choose Adjust numbers to change them (Hide numbers closes the area). A plan with nothing entered yet, meaning no income change and 0% prices, shows the fields on its own. There are two groups:

• Only for “{plan name}”: Monthly take-home income ($), Prices go up by (%) and Income recovers after (months). A valid field updates the forecast and saves when you leave it or press Enter. These numbers do not carry into the other plans. The world is ending assumes no income recovery by default; its Plan for income to return checkbox comes first, and turning it on lets you enter a recovery month. Existing recovery timing stays visible; turn the option off to remove it.
• All plans: Cash you could use, You want to keep and Looking ahead, with an Edit starting numbers button. It opens Cash you could use ($), Money you want to keep untouched ($), How far ahead to look (months) and Start date. Leave the cash blank to use your current cash you can use now. You can also use these settings and custom changes to model a plan before you have entered all your household data.

If an income amount needs checking, the warning names its payer or income type (such as Pension) so you can find the right record.

A plan you haven’t touched has no income entered, no price rise and no extra costs. If cash also never runs short or dips below your cushion without any changes, the answer card says Pick what happens instead of showing a verdict, and the Covered here marker is hidden. Existing cash risks still appear.

Choose Next: what you’d change to move on. When closed, the step’s summary is the plan name.

At the bottom of step 1, people who can open the What-if planner see "Planning a change, not a crisis? Try the What-if planner". The two tools are separate: the What-if planner compares your money on one day with and without a change, while this plan follows your cash month by month through a hard stretch.

Step 2: What would you change?

Step 2 is a common order to work through. Start at the top and stop when you’re covered. Nothing is canceled, sold or changed in your household.

Find a bill is a link above the list. It opens a search box with a Done button. While you type, the steps are replaced by the matching rows grouped under their step names, and the rows work from there: tick, type an amount or edit.

There are twelve steps, then Something else once it holds changes of your own. Only one is open at a time; opening one closes the other. Each header shows one thing on the right: the Next tag (where to start; Next: benefits can take weeks to start when you are already covered and your income drops), the number you chose with a tick (such as "1 of 3 chosen" or "2 chosen"), or what the step could save (such as "Up to $X/mo"; for Delay loan payments, "Up to $X/mo for 3 months"). Each open step ends with a "Next step: {name} →" link.

1. Bring money in. Set-up rows for unemployment, other benefits, help with food or bills, side work, renting out a room, gifts or crowdfunding, Sell household items not listed in Assets, and Severance, refund or insurance payout. Benefits take weeks to start, so this comes first. If you entered income under Only for “{plan name}”, the step reminds you to add only money that isn’t already in it.
2. Spend less day to day. Type a new monthly amount for your Food, Fuel, Clothing, Personal Care and Kids bills. Groceries and gas only count when they’re entered as bills, so if either is missing the step says so and links to Add bills.
3. Cut extras and subscriptions. Ticking a bill cuts it to $0. It covers Entertainment, Subscriptions, Software, Gym/Fitness, Storage Unit, Travel and Credit Card Fees bills, plus other non-essential bills with no Save money ideas.
4. Lower the bills you keep. Type a new monthly amount for bills you can shrink but not drop, such as phone, insurance, utilities and rent. A link to Ways to lower bills on Save money appears when you can open Save money.
5. Do it yourself. Ticking cuts paid help to $0: Home Maintenance and Professional Services bills, plus non-essential bills in the Other group named for a cleaner, maid, housekeeper, lawn, landscaping, pool, chef, meal kit, laundry or dog walker. Childcare shows up here only when your income drops, and is never part of Add all.
6. Pause contributions. Retirement, investment and savings contribution bills, even ones marked essential. When your income drops, a note reminds you that a paycheck 401(k) stops with the paycheck, so tick it if it’s listed.
7. Delay loan payments. Loan and credit card payment bills. Ticking a loan pauses its payment in months 2–4. For a card payment you type the lower payment you would ask for. Payments only pause or drop if your lender agrees.
8. Sell what you don’t need. One set-up row per boat, RV or other asset you could sell. A car is offered only when you have two or more, with the note "If you could manage with one fewer car".
9. Use investment accounts. One withdrawal per investment account, with taxes. HSA, 529 and annuity withdrawals can also carry penalties.
10. Lower your housing cost. Stay with family or friends, Move somewhere cheaper, and selling or downsizing a home or property.
11. Withdraw from retirement accounts. One withdrawal per retirement account, with taxes and a penalty estimate. A last resort: before 59½, taxes and a 10% penalty usually apply.
12. Explore bankruptcy. Talk to a nonprofit credit counselor or a bankruptcy attorney first.

Something else holds extra costs (Add a monthly expense, Pay a one-time cost), a reduction on a bill that isn’t in a step, and any change whose bill or asset is missing, disabled or now $0. It appears as a step only once it holds one of these.

A step with nothing for your household gets no row. Those steps fold into one line, "Not in your numbers yet: {step names}.", with an Add bills or Add assets link if you can create them.

The green Covered here marker sits in the list: before step 1 when your plan is enough as it stands, or right after the step that covers it. Still short sits at the bottom.

Below the list, Add a change opens the change editor with every choice grouped by step name. The hint reads "An extra cost, or anything not in a step above." A note says choices carry between milder and worse plans, and that nothing is canceled, sold or changed in your household. Choose Next: your checklist to move on. When closed, the step’s summary is "{n} changes chosen" or "Nothing chosen yet".

The rows in a step

• Checkbox rows (Cut extras and subscriptions, Do it yourself, Pause contributions, Delay loan payments). Tick one to turn the change on at the level you’re viewing. The row shows what it saves each month. Bills sit in cut order, lowest Save money value first. Bills you rated Cut first start ticked at every level, Question it from Temporary loss of income, and Worth it only at The world is ending.
• New monthly amount rows (Spend less day to day, Lower the bills you keep, and card payments in Delay loan payments). Type the new amount for the bill, such as $120, not the cut. It saves when you leave the box or press Enter. The row says "Now $X/mo" until you choose, then "Chosen · saves $Y/mo". Clear switches it off at this level and never deletes it. You can’t enter a higher amount here; add the extra cost with Add a monthly expense under Something else.
• Set-up rows (Bring money in, and Sell what you don’t need through Explore bankruptcy). Set up… opens the change editor with the kind, and the account or asset, already chosen. Cancel creates nothing. Changes you already have are listed above the buttons.
• Add all {n} to my plan and Uncheck all appear on Cut extras and subscriptions, Do it yourself, Pause contributions and Delay loan payments. Add all shows how many rows it will tick, skips any it can’t (for example a loan whose months a tougher plan sets itself) and names them with what to do. Uncheck all turns off, at this level, only the rows Add all covers. It never deletes anything.
• The settings button at the end of a row opens that change’s editor, where you can set months or an amount.
• An orange dot after a name means Changed for this plan: this level differs from the milder plan in more than on or off.
• The Next tag. Next marks where to start. There are no other step tags: a step you chose something in shows a tick and its count instead.

Changes carry between levels

A change you add is ticked at the level you add it and every tougher one. In the milder levels it shows unticked, so you can turn it on there instead of adding it twice. If you edit it at a milder level, the edit carries into tougher levels unless one of them keeps its own value, and the editor names the levels that do.

A change that is off here but on in a tougher plan shows On in “{level}”. Changes saved before the list existed that start in a tougher plan show Planned in “{level}” with an Edit in “{level}” button. To undo your edits at one level, open the change’s settings and choose Use lower-level choice: it drops that level’s own edits but keeps whether it is ticked there. Remove from all plans deletes the change from every level after you confirm.

For a bill, New monthly budget ($) is the final amount after inflation. Enter zero to model stopping the bill. An end month makes the bill return to its baseline cost afterward. Cuts in Do it yourself and Pause contributions last the whole plan unless you set an end month in the editor.

Delay loan payments

Loan rows say what the plan does, in months: "Paused months 2–4 · $X/mo still owed later", "Stopped from month 2 · still owed", or "Lowered to $A/mo · $Y/mo less, balance still owed". A change at or above the current payment says so and needs no lender. A row that is off here but on in a tougher plan says On in “{level}”.

Payments only pause or drop if your lender agrees. Ask about forbearance or a hardship plan. Interest may still build, and skipped payments usually still have to be repaid, sometimes all at once. The forecast treats paused payments as not owed and does not add the interest or the repayment. A nonprofit credit counselor can help you ask.

Help from others and benefits

For cash benefits or help from other people, use the amount you expect to receive after taxes and enter its start and end months. For noncash help, select the relevant bill and enter Monthly costs covered ($), plus its start and end months. Each source of help can be toggled separately. Help reduces the bill after its inflation adjustment or chosen budget, down to zero; unused help never becomes cash. Do not also count that same help as income. The planner does not check eligibility or predict approval, amounts, or timing.

Food shelves or pantries cover part of your grocery costs. For a GoFundMe or other fundraiser, use the net cash you expect to receive after fees and any taxes you expect, not the fundraising target. For program information, use USA.gov's benefit finder (opens in a new tab) or unemployment benefits guide (opens in a new tab). These resources do not establish that you qualify or how much help you will receive.

If you add money that is already in your income, such as unemployment you entered under Monthly take-home income ($), you count it twice. When the plan already holds income or one-time cash, Set up… opens with a line naming it, so you add a new one only if it’s separate money.

Read the Covered here marker

The green Covered here marker answers one question: how far down the list would you need to go? It sits before step 1 when your plan is enough as it stands, or right after the step that makes it work: Covered here: enough through “{step}”. That counts what you’ve chosen plus every cut and pause from the top down to that step, including ones you haven’t ticked, on these estimates.

Other markers are Lasts through “{step}”, but dips below your cushion and Still short, which says no cut or pause in the list closes the gap. A nonprofit credit counselor can help you weigh the next move. The marker tests cuts and pauses only, so Still short doesn’t mean nothing else could help.

Lines under the marker flag caveats: lenders must agree to any pause, stop or lower payment, groceries or gas aren’t in your bills, or costs are still higher than income after the last month. If a choice in Use investment accounts through Explore bankruptcy is doing the covering, the marker names it and suggests unticking it to see whether the earlier steps are enough.

The marker is hidden while a plan is untouched. Beth can read your saved plan but can’t run the forecast, so Beth points you to this marker rather than naming the step.

Estimate cash from an account

Choose Set up… next to an investment account under Use investment accounts, or a retirement account under Withdraw from retirement accounts. Enter the Gross withdrawal ($), timing, estimated taxes, and fees or other account costs. Retirement, HSA, 529 and annuity withdrawals also ask for your estimated early-withdrawal penalty. Enter an explicit zero when you expect no tax or penalty; the planner does not decide whether you qualify.

The tax amount is the total cash you want reserved for taxes, including any withholding. Do not add withholding again as a fee. For investments, estimate tax on the taxable gains, not the full amount withdrawn. Estimate taxes from a rate can multiply your taxable portion by your estimated combined rate; Use tax estimate puts that amount into the main tax field.

Net cash per withdrawal subtracts taxes, penalties, and costs from the gross amount. Repeat every month uses the same amounts each month, with an optional Last withdrawal in month. The full gross amount reduces the recorded account balance. No investment growth or future contributions are projected. If the account cannot fund a full withdrawal, that withdrawal and all later withdrawals are skipped; the forecast warns you rather than using a partial amount. Each account gets one change, which carries into the tougher levels; edit that change instead of adding the same account again.

Confirm availability with your plan or account provider. Retirement access rules and tax exceptions vary, and withholding may not cover the total tax. If debts are the main problem, a nonprofit credit counselor or a bankruptcy attorney can explain what is protected from creditors before you withdraw. See the IRS guidance on early distributions (opens in a new tab) and plan withdrawal rules (opens in a new tab).

Account for the whole cost of a sale

Choose Set up… next to the asset: vehicles and other assets are under Sell what you don’t need, homes and property under Lower your housing cost. Check the expected price, loan payoff, selling costs, Estimated taxes on sale ($), and sale month. Taxes are your reserve estimate; no exemption is assumed. The starting price and payoff are estimates to verify.

Open Replacement and transition costs only when needed to include a replacement purchase, delivery and setup, moving costs, or new monthly costs. Under Which current bills stop when you sell?:

• For a vehicle or other sale, the payment bill of the loan it pays off is already ticked. Tick any other bill that stops. Insurance, fuel and bills shared with another asset are never ticked for you.
• For a home or property sale, nothing is ticked. Tick the mortgage and any other bills that stop, and add your new housing cost if you live there.

Replacement costs paid early ($) are part of the replacement total: they come out in the month you choose, with the remainder paid at the sale. Net cash can be negative when costs exceed proceeds. A sale in a later month cannot fund an earlier shortage.

Plan a stay with family or friends

Under Lower your housing cost, choose Set up… next to Stay with family or friends or Move somewhere cheaper. Only one move or stay fits in a plan, so once one exists, the other becomes a note. Enter New monthly housing costs ($), Move in month, and any Stay through month. Select the bills that would stop during the stay; mortgage payments and other costs do not stop automatically. Under Moving costs and deposit refund, enter moving or lease-exit costs, a new deposit and setup costs, and any old deposit you expect back with its return month.

For a temporary stay, enter the last month. Selected bills resume afterward unless another change, such as a sale, already removes them. A deposit can return later than the stay ends. This changes the cash forecast without changing ownership of your home or any debt.

If you also plan to sell a home or property, the editor says so. Enter your new housing and moving costs in the stay only, not also in the sale, or the plan counts them twice. If the stay ends before the plan does, add your later housing cost with Add a monthly expense under Something else, starting the month after it ends, unless you’ll return to a home you still pay for.

Model bankruptcy-related cash flow

Under Explore bankruptcy, choose Set up…. Case you want to model offers Not sure yet, Chapter 7, and Chapter 13; choosing one does not change payments automatically. Enter your estimated Legal, filing and counseling costs ($), their payment month, and Change selected payments in month. Select the current payments you expect the scenario to replace, then enter any New monthly plan payment ($), its start month, and Number of plan payments. Do not count fees both upfront and inside the monthly payment. Only selected bills leave the forecast; nothing is assumed discharged for you.

Open Cash or property used to pay creditors for an upfront cash contribution or Assets you would surrender. Select each asset explicitly. It produces no cash and cannot also fund a sale or withdrawal from the payment-change month onward. Earlier modeled transactions and costs paid before a blocked sale remain in the forecast. This is a cash-flow estimate, not a finding that an asset is exempt, a debt will be discharged, or you qualify for bankruptcy.

Confirm the legal treatment before relying on it: liens and obligations that are not discharged may remain. The U.S. Courts explains Chapter 7 (opens in a new tab), Chapter 13 (opens in a new tab), and discharge (opens in a new tab).

Read the answer card

The answer card is in the right column on a computer, and stays in view as you scroll. On a phone or tablet it is a bar at the bottom of the screen showing the short answer and "Changes add +$X · Tap for details"; tapping it opens the full card as a sheet.

The card starts with "In “{plan name}”, your money" and a short headline: Lasts all N months, Runs out in {month year}, Short from the start, Dips below your cushion in {month year}, or Pick what happens when nothing is entered. Under it, a sentence says what the plan shows, such as how much there is still to make up, or the lowest modeled balance when you are covered. A lender caveat appears when a loan payment is paused, stopped or lowered.

The chart compares With your changes and No changes. A dotted line marks your cash cushion, and red shading marks the part below $0, separately from the cushion.

Your changes add shows how much more or less cash you are projected to have at the end of the plan than making no changes. It combines savings, income, sales or withdrawals, and added costs; it is a cash difference, not a gain in net worth.

Month by month opens the lowest projected cash, the cash at the end and the monthly table. A line below the chart shows what the plan assumes: money coming in per month, and the living-cost increase. Check these assumptions lists the forecast’s warnings when there are any.

The forecast uses monthly planning averages. It does not track the exact days income arrives or bills come due. A living-cost increase affects ordinary expenses; linked debt payments, transfers, and contributions stay fixed. Explicit bill budgets remain the final amounts you entered. Results are estimates, not guarantees or financial advice.

What the plan doesn’t model

• Interest that builds during a payment pause, and repaying the skipped payments afterward.
• Lowering a payroll 401(k) contribution while you’re still employed.
• Day-to-day spending that isn’t entered as a bill, such as groceries and gas.
• Whether a property is your home or a rental. All real estate sits under Lower your housing cost.

Your household plan saves automatically when you leave a valid assumption field, check or uncheck a change, type a new monthly amount, choose Apply changes in an action or starting-number editor, remove a change, or use Use lower-level choice. Invalid assumption entries stay on the page with an error; correct the field to include it. Switching plans asks before discarding unfinished assumptions or an amount you started typing. Other editor entries stay local until Apply changes or Cancel. Choosing a plan only changes your view. The page remembers the open wizard step, the plan you were on and which list step you had open for the rest of your visit.

When a change saves, the field or checkbox you changed flashes green with a small check. You can keep editing while a save is running. A message appears at the top only when something needs you. Changes not saved means your edits remain on the page; choose Retry saving. Failed saves also retry when your connection returns.

If the plan is saved somewhere else while you have this page open — another tab or device, your spouse or partner, or a change you asked Beth to make — and you have no unsaved edits here, the page quietly loads that newer plan for you. If you do have unsaved edits, saving pauses instead: This plan changed elsewhere asks you to Reload latest, which discards your local edits and loads the latest saved version.

Ask Beth to change it

With Beth's Read & write turned on, an owner or spouse/partner can ask Beth to change this plan in chat instead of using the page — for example "at Level 3, cut my streaming bills" or "add a $400/month unemployment benefit starting month 2." Beth shows a card titled Change your SHTF plan with one line per thing it would touch and the value before and after. Nothing changes until you tap Confirm, and Undo on the card puts the previous plan back for 24 hours (see Undo a change Beth made). A change Beth adds follows the same rule as the page: ticked at that level and every tougher one, unticked in the milder ones. A vehicle or other sale starts with its own loan’s payment bill ticked, and a home sale starts with none. If your household has no saved plan yet, Beth's first confirmed change saves the starting plan shown above plus that change. Beth asks for any amount, month, tax, penalty, benefit, or price it needs rather than guessing one, and this stays a hypothetical plan — nothing in your bills, accounts, or assets is cancelled, sold, or changed.

Step 3: Your checklist

Step 3 starts with Checklist for, four buttons, one for each plan. It opens on the plan you have open. Pick another and the step shows that plan's checklist, and Print checklist prints that plan, without switching the rest of the page. The checklist is a to-do list: one line per step, each with a plain action ("Cancel Amazon Prime", "Pause Car loan payments", "List the 2019 Honda Accord for sale") and one figure, what it saves each month or the money it brings in. A strip at the top adds it up: how many things to do, how much less goes out each month, and what comes in. Do now comes first: everything that starts in month 1, plus the first step for anything that pays off later. After that, each month lists only what newly starts then. Each plan's button also shows how many changes it holds, or Empty. An empty plan shows "This plan’s checklist is empty" with a Pick changes button, which switches the page to that plan and opens step 2.

Choose Print checklist to open a one-page action plan. It lists the chosen changes, ordered within a month so the slowest thing to arrange comes first — a bankruptcy filing or a house sale before a subscription you can cancel in a minute. Each line has an empty square to tick off with a pen.

Do now includes the first step for anything that takes time: starting on benefits or other money coming in, calling your lender about a pause, stop or lower payment, and listing things for sale. Those lines say when the money is expected, and every lender line says it needs lender approval. A pause also notes that skipped payments usually still have to be repaid, sometimes all at once. A pause that a sale, stay or bankruptcy in the plan already covers gets no lender line. The Watch out for box repeats the answer card’s verdict, including any lender-approval line.

The print page starts on your Checklist for pick. Choose Which plan are you printing? to switch levels, and set Day one to the date it actually starts — it defaults to today, so month 1 is counted from then rather than from the start date you picked while building the plan. Both only change the sheet, never your saved plan. The current-income baseline uses the same account date and contribution year as the main SHTF page and refreshes when that day changes. Choosing Day one changes the schedule dates, not the current-income baseline.

Print / Save as PDF opens your browser's print dialog. Only the sheet prints; the toolbar and the print options are left off. Nothing on this page is saved, which is the point: a printed copy needs no login, no battery and no signal.

The public demo (opens in a new tab) starts each fictional household with its own sample assumptions and planned changes across all four plans. It shows Demo changes aren’t saved at the top. Changes stay on the page and reset when you leave, change households, or choose Reset sample plan, which restores that household’s sample plan. Your saved account plan is never used in the demo.