The questions

The lens catalog

Every guided what-if that ships today — what each lens asks, how its dials work, and what pressing Add to plan actually does. · 8-minute read

What a lens is

A lens is a scenario with its question already asked: the right dials on the rail, the right chart annotations, a verdict phrased in your numbers. Every lens follows the same rules — it is a sandbox on its plan until you press Add to plan, andFacts, plans & scenarios covers what that press does. This page is the catalog: each lens, what it asks, and what adding it to your plan means.

What follows describes each lens's own answer — the part that always copies. An Add takes the scenario whole, so anything else you changed while you were in there comes with it; Review in the dialog names every value and lets you leave those extras behind. Any lens can also be previewed over your plan rather than added, if you would rather see it on top of your plan than in it.

A scenario's menu: Preview in my plan and Add to plan above rename, duplicate, and the rest — Every lens is reached the same way, and every one of them offers the same two exits: copy it into your plan, or lay it over the plan and just look.

The catalog below tracks what's live in the product — it grows as lenses ship.

Retire early

When can I stop — and what does each year earlier cost?

Drag the retirement age and watch the fork move. Behind it sit the dials that decide whether an earlier date holds: when Social Security starts for each of you, and what retirement spending looks like — flat, fixed, or the early-years smile. The chart annotates the gap against your plan at every age you try.

The Retire early lens: the scenario line forked below the plan line at the chosen age, with money-lasts, withdrawal rate, net worth and the cost by 95 — Solid is this scenario, dashed is the plan you have. The stat row underneath turns the gap into a number: what the earlier date costs by 95.

Add to plan sets your plan’s retirement age to the one you chose — a one-off copy of the dial. Change your mind later and Add again; the new age overwrites the old.

Coast to retirement

When could I stop contributing and let growth do the rest?

Coast asks a gentler question than retiring: keep working, stop saving. Slide the stop age and the lens shows whether what you’ve already banked coasts to your number by retirement. The frozen-base spending tiles show what today’s money supports at each tier.

The Coast to retirement lens: the coast number, what it grows to by retirement, and how much earlier the coast point arrives — The coast number is the headline: what you would need banked today for growth alone to carry you. Everything else measures how far past it you already are.

Add to plan translates the stop age into each account’s contribute-until age — per-account dials copied into your plan, which owns them outright.

Buy a home

What does buying this place do to everything else?

Price, down payment, rate, and when — plus the carrying costs that make a house more than a mortgage. It works for the first home and for the next one: the lens models the purchase against whatever you own today, including what happens to the rent or the old place. The one-time money (closing, moving) rides as dated events.

The Buy a home lens: affordable price at each debt-to-income level, where the monthly cost goes, and what is left saving after the purchase — Each bar is what you could afford at that debt-to-income ratio, with yours marked. Below it, the month the purchase actually creates.

Add to plan copies the decision in whole — the property, its loan, the dated cash — into your plan as ordinary rows.

Rent vs buy

Is owning actually winning, for us, here?

Monte reads which side you’re on from your profile — renters see what buying changes, owners see what their equity is doing versus renting it back. Both paths carry their honest costs (maintenance, taxes, the down payment’s lost growth), and the verdict is a crossover age, not a slogan.

The Rent vs buy lens: both paths on one net-worth chart, with the breakeven year called out — Both futures on one chart, each carrying its honest costs. The verdict is the year one crosses the other — not a slogan.

When the answer is “buy”, this lens hands you off to the buying lens, where the purchase has the controls it deserves — the add happens there.

Drop to one income

Could we live on one paycheck?

Pick which income stops and when — a sabbatical, a staying-home decision, a layoff you want to be ready for. The lens carries the knock-on effects: the contributions that stop with the paycheck, the expenses that change, the taxes that re-bracket around the remaining income.

The Drop to one income lens: household income after the change against income today, and the costs that end with the paycheck — What the household actually lives on afterwards, once the costs that end with that paycheck are taken off too.

Add to plan copies the income’s end date and the changes you kept into your plan — the household’s new shape becomes the baseline.

Career change

What does the switch really cost — and when does it pay back?

Four cards: when the switch happens, what your income does (including a gap between paychecks), what your expenses do, and the one-time money — severance, a bootcamp, relocation. The chart shows the dip and the crossover, so “worth it” gets a date.

The Career change lens: income if you stay beside income if you switch, the mix before and after, and the cost and payback of switching — Staying on the left, switching on the right, every income stream in its own colour. The stat row prices the switch and says whether it ever pays back.

Add to plan copies the switch — income fates, expense changes, dated cash — into your plan as ordinary rows.

Save for a wedding

Can we pay for the wedding we want without raiding the rest of the plan?

Start from the guest list and the date, then track it vendor by vendor. Booked contracts hold their price and every deposit sits on its real due date, so the saving pace follows the schedule — a big payment up front raises the bar in a way a flat average would hide, and family help lowers it when it arrives. The verdict says whether the months between now and the date carry it.

The Save for a wedding lens: what you have already paid, family help, and your saving flowing into the wedding and out to each vendor category, with guest gifts lowering the final cost — Who covers it: already-paid, family help, and your saving flow into the wedding and out to every category. Guest gifts arrive on the day — they don’t fund the bills, they lower what it ends up costing.

Add to plan copies the schedule in as dated rows — each remaining payment on its month, the family help when it lands, the day itself on your timeline. Your plan owns them outright; change a vendor later and Add again to bring it up to date.

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