Understand how Lifetime Planner creates your financial forecast

Understand how Lifetime Planner creates your financial forecast

The Lifetime Planner in Quicken Classic for Windows uses a model, or computer simulation, to help you understand whether your current financial decisions will meet your long-term goals. The model calculates future income, spending, savings, and investment growth over time.

This simulation helps you answer questions like:

  • Will I have enough money to retire at the age I want?

  • Can I afford large future expenses like college or a new home?

  • Will my savings and investments cover my expenses throughout retirement?

You can use the Lifetime Planner to test different “what-if” scenarios and see how changing your assumptions—such as retirement age, Social Security benefits, or savings rate—affects your long-term outlook.

What you provide

To build your forecast, you provide information about:

  • Income — such as salary, pensions, and Social Security

  • Expenses — including household bills, planned major purchases, or ongoing retirement costs

  • Savings and investments — including balances and estimated rates of return

  • Life events — such as retirement dates, home purchases, or education costs

The model uses this data to calculate your net worth and cash flow for each year of your plan.

What the results show

The goal of the model is to determine whether your available funds (income, savings, investments) can cover your projected expenses each year. If there are years when your expenses exceed your available funds, the plan shows a shortfall.

By reviewing these results, you can adjust your inputs and test new strategies—for example, delaying retirement, increasing savings, or reducing future spending.

Why this matters

The Lifetime Planner doesn’t predict the future. Instead, it gives you a way to model possible outcomes so you can make better-informed decisions today. Your assumptions matter. The more accurate and realistic your inputs, the more useful your forecast becomes.