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A milestone is a moment in your plan, set by an age, a date, a net-worth level, a financial independence test, combined conditions or an offset from another milestone. CoastMath checks milestones at the start of every projection year, before anything else happens that year. Once a milestone is reached, it stays reached. Incomes, expenses, loans and rules that start or end at a milestone follow it, and the month it takes effect decides how much of that year they run.
| Trigger Type | Year it takes effect | Month |
|---|---|---|
| Age | The year you reach that age | Your birth month, or later for a fractional age: 59.5 falls six months after it |
| Date | The date’s year | The date’s month; the day is ignored |
| Net worth reaches | The year after net worth first reaches the amount | January |
| Financial independence (multiple of expenses) | The year after the balance first exceeds the multiple of that year’s spending | January |
| Conditions | The first year all or any conditions hold, or a fire deadline is reached | Latest required month for All; earliest qualifying month for Any |
| Relative to another milestone | The other milestone’s year plus the offset | The other milestone’s month for an age or date base; otherwise January |
Net-worth and financial independence milestones depend on how the projection turns out, so CoastMath tests them against the balance at the end of the previous year. The financial independence estimate explains that test in detail. A negative offset works only from a milestone with a fixed date, such as an age or date milestone. CoastMath can’t place a milestone before a net-worth or financial independence milestone, because that year isn’t known in advance, and the projection reports an error.
Choose Conditions under Trigger Type, then match All conditions or Any condition. Add up to ten age, year, date, milestone or metric conditions. For example, combine your age of 50 with liquid net worth at least 25 times annual spending averaged over three years.
Balances and debt use the opening balances of the projection year. Annual spending is the completed year’s expenses before taxes, annualized for a partial first year. Passive income includes investment income (including realized gains), pensions, annuities, Social Security and rent, excluding wages and self-employment. Savings rate is contributions, including employer contributions and saved surplus but excluding reinvested income and transfers, divided by gross income. Both income metrics use the most recently completed simulated year.
Today's dollars grows your threshold with cumulative plan inflation. Multiple of metric compares against the average of the selected metric over up to the specified number of completed simulated years. Early in a projection, only available years count; a metric with no completed year cannot satisfy the condition. Savings rates use percent, so enter 20 for 20%.
Set a deadline using an age, year, date or another milestone. Fire if not reached makes the milestone take effect at that deadline. Mark missed if not reached permanently leaves it unreached; items tied to its start never begin. Conditions are checked in the deadline year before it is marked missed. A missed milestone counts as unreached on the Success odds tab.
In the year a milestone takes effect, an item that starts at it begins in the milestone’s month. An item that ends at it runs through the month before. If you set a start or end month on the item, that month is used instead. In other years the item runs the full year or not at all.
| Annual salary | $120,000 | |
|---|---|---|
| × | January through May | 5 ÷ 12 |
| = | Salary in the retirement year | $50,000 |
| Annual travel budget starting at Retirement | $24,000 | |
| × | June through December | 7 ÷ 12 |
| = | Travel in the retirement year | $14,000 |
Year
Retirement is at age 60. “Two years before retirement” and “Downsize” are relative milestones with offsets of −2 and +5. Move Retirement, and the other two milestones and every item attached to them move with it.
Show data
| Year | Salary | Bridge ($12,000 a year) | Travel ($24,000 a year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2033 | $120,000 | $7,000 | $0 |
| 2034 | $120,000 | $12,000 | $0 |
| 2035 | $50,000 | $5,000 | $14,000 |
| 2036 | $0 | $0 | $24,000 |
| 2040 | $0 | $0 | $10,000 |
| 2041 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Because net-worth and financial independence milestones take effect in January, a salary that ends at one of them stops at the start of that year and pays nothing in it. An age milestone in January works the same way: an item ending at it has nothing left to run in that year.
A milestone that falls before the plan starts is in effect from the first year. This covers an age you’ve already passed, a past date, or a negative offset that lands in the past. Items that start at it run the whole first year. Items that end at it never run. In the milestone list, it shows “reached year, before the plan starts in year; already in effect”.
These can start and end at milestones:
- Income streams
- Expenses
- Savings rules
- The flexible spending rule
- Charitable giving
- Marketplace health coverage
A loan’s Payoff milestone pays it off (see Mortgages and loans). An item with no start milestone begins when the plan starts. An item with no end milestone runs until the plan ends. An item whose start milestone is never reached never begins. When an income or expense has a start milestone that falls after its end milestone, or an end milestone that is reached while its start never is, the projection warns that it never runs.
Switch a milestone off
To try a plan without a milestone but keep its settings and links, edit it and clear Active. A switched-off milestone is listed as inactive and never takes effect, and it never misses a deadline. Everything that refers to it treats it as never reached: an item that starts at it never begins, an item that ends at it runs to the plan end, a relative milestone based on it never takes effect, a condition on it is never met and a deadline set by it never arrives. Check Active again to restore it.
Age, date and relative-to-date milestones fall in the same year in every trial. Net-worth and financial independence milestones depend on returns, so each trial reaches them in a different year, or never. The Milestone timing table under Success odds shows how often each milestone was reached. It also shows the 10th-percentile, median and 90th-percentile years among the trials that reached it. See Success odds.