Will our money last?
Last Chair replays your plan through every year of US markets since 1928, including the crash of 1929, the stagflation that began in 1966 and the financial crisis of 2008, and tells you in how many of them your money lasts to age 95. Pensions and Social Security count as income from the year they start.
- No advisory fee
- No bank logins, ever
- Your data, never sold
start years since 1928 in which the money lasts to 2084, drawing $79,960 a year from 2033. Start years from 1969 on run out of recorded years before your plan ends, so they finish with the years from 1928, as if history repeated (the hatched bars). With recorded years alone (1928–1968), the money lasted in all 41.
The crash of 1929: the money lasts, with $6.83M left in 2084.
One bar per start year, as if today were January of that year: height is what is left in 2084, rust where the money ran out. The hardest, 1966, still ends with $1.14M. Hatched bars run past 2025 and continue from 1928.
How the answer is worked out
Every year since 1928
Your plan is run as if today were January of each year from 1928 on, through the US markets that actually followed.
Your spending, every year
What you spend, less any rent, pension or Social Security coming in, drawn every year whatever markets do. A real household would cut back in a bad year; the test does not, so it errs on the safe side.
In today's dollars
US stocks, Treasuries and bills from the historical record, deflated by that year's inflation and rebalanced to your mix every year. International funds replay US stocks; crypto earns the return you assume.
A range, not a forecast
Index returns before fund fees and taxes. Past markets show how wide the road has been, not where it goes next.
Sample household, computed by the same engine that runs your statement: work stops in 2033, then $79,960 a year in today's dollars until 2084.
The exact trades. No tax unless you allow it.
Markets pull your mix away from where you set it. Last Chair reads every account you hold and writes out the trades, account by account and in order, that put it back, with sales placed inside IRAs and 401(k)s where they cost nothing. Nothing that realises a taxable gain is proposed unless you allow it. You place the trades yourself, at your own brokerage.
- 1 $74KPriya · 401(k)FXAIX → FXNAX
- 2 $66KPriya · 401(k)FXAIX → FSPSX
- 3 $124KSam · Rollover IRA2 funds → VTI
- 4 $49KSam · Rollover IRAAEPGX → VXUS
Result: on policy, fees down $1,096 a year
Last Chair provides planning tools, not investment advice.
- 1
Cut fees where it costs nothing
Expensive funds are swapped for cheaper twins inside retirement accounts first, and in taxable accounts only when the sale is free.
- 2
Put new money to work
Cash goes to the most underweight class, staged over months if you'd rather not go all in at once.
- 3
Exchange inside retirement accounts
Sales there trigger no tax. Bonds are placed in pre-tax accounts, where their income is sheltered.
- 4
Taxable sales only if you allow them
Never at a gain unless you permit it, and then within a yearly tax budget you set. Losses worth harvesting are flagged, and nothing is bought that would wash one.
A 1% advisor on $2.3M is $23,000 a year.
Every year, in good markets and bad. Over 25 years of retirement that is $575,000, before the growth it would have earned. Fund expense ratios and pricey share classes add more, quietly. Last Chair finds every one, shows what it costs in dollars, and lines up low-cost swaps, tax-free where possible.
- $3,142
- a year in fees
- $299K
- lost by age 60
- $1,096
- a year saved by the swaps
Sample household. Seeing your own total is free.
| HOLDING | FEE | COST / YR |
|---|---|---|
Growth Fund of America A AGTHX · Sam · Rollover IRA | 0.61% | $491 |
EuroPacific Growth A AEPGX · Sam · Rollover IRA | 0.80% | $388 |
AMCAP Fund A AMCPX · Sam · Rollover IRA | 0.64% | $278 |
Target Retirement 2055 Trust Entered by hand · Sam · 401(k) | 0.12% | $248 |
Advisory fee Sam · Rollover IRA | 0.85% | $1,466 |
10 index funds The low-cost core | 0.04% | $270 |
| Total | 0.14% in funds | $3,142 |
Last Chair provides planning tools, not investment advice.
Your accounts stay where they are.
Last Chair never holds your money, never places a trade and never asks for a bank login. What we can and can't see
- We never ask for your bank login
- No credentials, no aggregators, no connections to your bank or brokerage.
- Nothing that would let anyone touch your money
- No passwords, no account numbers, no Social Security numbers. Ever.
- Encrypted end to end
- Your data is locked with your key. We can't read it either.
- No data resale
- Membership pays for Last Chair. You are not the product.
- Two minutes a month
- Tickers and crypto price themselves. Update a couple of balances; that's it.
- Leave any time
- Export everything to a spreadsheet and delete your account in one step.
A flat fee. Not a percentage.
Named for the last lift of the day, and the run you saved for.
For the whole household. Cancel any time. Have a code? Enter it at checkout.
Renews yearly at $99 until you cancel. Full refund within 30 days of your first payment. Setting up and seeing your year is free. Membership opens the full statement, the trades and the plan.
- The trades that put your mix back on target, account by account, with the tax of each
- Fund swaps, fund by fund, into cheaper equivalents
- The year work becomes optional, when you could stop saving, and what-ifs
- Every account on one page, with a printable statement
- Monthly check-in reminders
- Both of you on one plan, one sign-in
If Last Chair finds even 0.1% in fees on a $1M portfolio, it pays for itself ten times over. The Fee Finder is free.