Exit planning for people leaving work early

Build your exit plan
while you're still
in the 9–5.

You stop at 45. Your retirement accounts open at 59½. TC Financial plans the whole stretch — the years you're still earning and contributing, the gap years after, and exactly which account can pay for which. Then it lets you change your mind: every what-if comes back as a date, not a score.

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A phase card from the planner, with example figures.

The problem

Most planners assume you stop at 65

So they treat your savings as one pot and draw it down evenly. That holds right up until the moment it matters — because a 401(k) at 45 is not spendable money, and a tool that counts it as spendable will tell you a plan works when it doesn't. You want to find that out now, with years left to fix it, not in your first week off.

Not all money is reachable

Retirement accounts carry an age before the balance opens up. Until then only part of it — often what you've contributed to a Roth — is available. One pot averages that away.

The gap years have their own budget

What you spend at 45 with a mortgage isn't what you spend at 62 with Social Security arriving. Those are separate problems funded by separate accounts.

"Runs out" hides two different failures

Being broke and being locked out look identical in a balance total. They need opposite fixes — spend less, or fund those years from something you can touch.

Inside the tool

What you actually see

Every figure below is the planner's own output, shown with example numbers.

The answer, in one line

You enter an age you'd like to stop. The planner works the question backwards and tells you the earliest age your balances genuinely support — solved against the same projection that draws every chart, not a rule of thumb.

These balances support retiring at 47½, not 45 — about 2½ years later.

Every account, drawn down

Build-up, then spend-down, account by account — so you can see which one carries which stretch of years.

Retire 45 40 60 90
Roth IRA Brokerage

What each phase can carry

Rather than making you guess a number and check it, the planner solves for the most each phase can spend without leaving the next one short.

Can support up to $3,900/mo
You've entered $3,050/mo $850 of headroom

Pay the debt off, or keep investing?

Choose the debts you'd clear early, say how much extra you'd throw at them, and name the account that pauses to fund it. You get the payoff date, the interest that never accrues, and what the pause costs that account — then both effects netted into the only number that settles it, your retirement date. A loan in deferment is where this bites hardest, and it's handled: interest that accrues without a payment is counted, so "no payment due" never reads as "no cost".

Retire half a year sooner

Debts clear Aug 2030 instead of Mar 2036 · $11,200 of interest never accrues

The paused brokerage lands $33,600 smaller — both effects, one date

How it works

Start now, from the job you're still in

This isn't something you open the month you quit. The plan begins with the paycheck you have today and runs all the way through.

  1. 01

    Start where you are

    Your age, your debts, and every account with what you're putting into it each month. No budget to rebuild — you've done that elsewhere. Those contributing years are part of the projection, not a blank run-up to it: employer match, debt payoffs freeing up cash, and growth all compound month by month while you're still earning.

  2. 02

    Pick your exit date

    Name the age you want to stop. The planner tells you straight away whether your balances support it — and if not, the earliest age they do.

  3. 03

    Say what unlocks when

    Split everything after your exit into phases, and assign accounts to each. A bridge phase from the day you stop until your accounts open, then whatever comes after. Where only part of an account is reachable early, you say how much and at what age the rest unlocks.

  4. 04

    Then change your mind, repeatedly

    Move the exit age, pause an account to clear a debt early, test a bad first decade, weigh Roth against Traditional, find the point your balances carry themselves. Every answer comes back as a date, not a score. Keep as many plans side by side as you like — one per scenario, or one per client.

Why it reads differently

Decisions made on your behalf

Face value, always

The spending figure you type is the amount withdrawn. Nothing is inflated on top of it, and debt payments sit inside it rather than being added again. Your balance divided by your spending reconciles on paper — so you can check the tool's work.

Locked is not the same as gone

When a phase falls short, the planner says which kind of short. If half a million is sitting in an account you can't open for another decade, it says so — with the amount and the age — instead of telling you that you're broke.

It solves in both directions

Hold the age and it tells you what you can spend. Hold the spending and it tells you the earliest age that works. Both are searched against the real projection, so the answers can't drift from the charts.

Built for two, if there are two

Tag accounts and income by owner and plan as a household — useful when your timelines differ and your accounts open in different years.

About

Why this exists

I spent a decade in accounting and financial operations — high-volume work and year-end close — where the whole job is making numbers reconcile and stand up to scrutiny.

I built TC Financial because the planning tools I could find quietly rounded off the part that matters most to anyone leaving work early: the years before your accounts open. This one is deliberately literal about it. Every figure is one you entered or one you can check by hand.

Questions

Before you start

Who is this actually for?

People who are still working and intend to stop well before their retirement accounts open — often in their thirties or forties. You're meant to start this years out, while you still have a salary and time to change the outcome. If you're retiring at 65, a conventional calculator will serve you fine. If you're aiming for 42, the gap years are the whole problem, and that's what this is built around.

Do I need to connect my bank accounts?

No. Nothing is linked and no credentials are ever requested. You enter balances yourself and update them whenever you want. That's a deliberate choice — it keeps you in control of the numbers and means there's nothing to breach.

How does it handle inflation?

It doesn't inflate anything. The amount you enter is the amount withdrawn, every year, and your all-in spending is assumed to already cover what you actually spend — including debt payments. If you want to plan in tomorrow's dollars, enter tomorrow's dollars. The point is that you can always check the arithmetic yourself.

How does it know what I can withdraw early?

You tell it. When you add an account to a phase that starts before the account opens, it asks how much is reachable and at what age the rest unlocks. The planner never derives that from your account type, because it can't know your contribution history — and being confidently wrong about it would be worse than asking.

Is this financial advice?

No. It's planning software. It projects the figures you enter and explains what they mean. It doesn't recommend investments, and it isn't a substitute for advice from a professional who knows your full situation.

What does it cost?

The planner is free to use while it's in early access — you can build a full plan today without entering a card. Paid plans are coming; if you'd like to hear when, send a note and I'll let you know.

Contact

Questions, or something the planner won't model?

If your situation has a wrinkle the tool doesn't handle yet, that's genuinely useful to hear — it's how the feature list gets decided.

Book a call