What we will not claim
No projection of your savings, and no promised date to retire
Why no page here says what your savings could become, how likely a plan is to work, or when you could stop working.
AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.
What you will see advertised
“See exactly how much you will have at retirement, and the date you can stop working.”
Quoted in order to be refused: this practice never says it, and the rest of this page says why.
A projected or targeted return is hypothetical performance under the SEC's advertising rule, and advisers have been penalized for putting projections on their websites. So nothing here says what your savings could grow to, how likely a plan is to work, or when you could retire.
What the rules say
Each read against its source in October 2026.
- Hypothetical performance includes targeted or projected performance returns, results no portfolio of the adviser actually achieved (17 CFR 275.206(4)-1(e)(8)).
- Nine registered advisers were penalized for advertising hypothetical performance to the general public on their websites without the required policies (SEC 2023-173).
The sources, to read in full:
What we say instead
Nothing here projects what your savings could grow to, how likely a plan is to work or when you could retire. A projection is a guess about markets printed as a number, and on an adviser's website it is treated as performance.
A plan written here never promises a result, a return or a date you will be able to retire by, and this website shows no plan's figures, because a sample with figures in it would be a projection.
- We do not project what your savings could become, or promise a date to retire.
Why planners' websites say it, and why it doesn't hold
A single figure for the day you stop working, and a date beside it, is what most people come to a planner hoping to hear. Software makes it easy to print one, and a chart that climbs steadily toward it looks like a plan already written.
The first rule above puts a figure like that in the same family as figures about past results: it describes a result no portfolio has achieved. The second describes advisers who paid penalties over figures of that kind on their own websites. Behind every one of them sits a guess about markets, and the date it shows moves the moment the guess is wrong. It is the weakest line in a plan, printed in the largest type.
What a planning practice can honestly say, and do
What a plan can honestly do is be written so that it does not need anybody to guess right:
We will not tell you what the market will do, this year or any year. Nobody knows, and a plan is written so that it does not depend on anybody guessing right.
And it can set out the decisions in order, with every assumption labeled, so that a reader can see what the plan rests on:
A written plan is a short document in plain words: what you told us matters most, what you have and owe, the decisions in front of you in the order they should be made, and who makes each one: you, your employer's benefits office, your CPA or your attorney. Every assumption it makes is written down and labeled as one.
What to ask any planner
Put them to any planner before you sign anything. A plain answer tells you something, and so does a vague one.
- What does the figure you showed me assume about markets, and who chose that?
- What happens to the date if that assumption is wrong?
- Which parts of my plan still hold if markets do badly for years?
- Is the chart you showed me drawn from any real account?
- What would you tell me to do if the figure turned out wrong?
The other things this site will not claim
Ask for a first meeting
A first meeting costs nothing, gives no advice and asks nothing of you afterwards: about forty-five minutes, at the office or by video. The office replies in office hours.