The Best FIRE Software Just Got Even Better

Three years ago, I introduced you to ProjectionLab and called it the most powerful financial planning tool I’d ever seen.

It was built specifically for people pursuing FIRE, and it’s still the most useful FI planning tool I’ve found.

In the original post, Kyle (the solo developer behind the project) shared his background and walked through how to build a plan.

When I built my first plan, I realized I needed to immediately change my investment strategy (I stopped contributing to my tax-deferred accounts because the software showed me that I already contributed too much to those accounts).

Since then, I’ve watched Kyle quit his day job, grow a team, and turn ProjectionLab into something even more impressive.

The tool has changed a lot recently, and I wanted to invite him back to share what’s new. Because after using the new features, I’ve changed my financial plans yet again! The software showed me that I could potentially leave over $1.5 million more to my kids by making a few small changes to my tax strategy 😳

It’s incredible that one software application has caused me to make such drastic changes to my finances (twice!), but that’s the power of what Kyle and his team have built.

Take it away, Kyle!

– – – – – – – –

Hey everyone, Kyle here. Thanks for having me back.

When I wrote that first post, I still had a corporate day job. ProjectionLab was a side project I worked on every night after work, plus weekends and holidays.

The Mad Fientist community helped change the trajectory of this project and gave me the confidence to bet my career on it.

I had hoped a few people would find the tool useful. But when so many of you tried PL and shared thoughtful feedback on things like tax optimization, Roth conversions, and withdrawal strategies, you helped me realize this could become something real.

Two months later, I dropped to part-time at my day job. Six months after that, I quit entirely to focus on PL.

So thank you. Genuinely. You changed my life.

Today, over 200,000 households have used ProjectionLab to build a plan. We’ve grown from just me into a small team and built a profitable, fully independent company.

No venture capital, no advisory upsells, no selling your data. We build for the people who use it, and we’ve added a lot since 2023.

What’s new?

Two years of full-time development and the help of a team adds up. Here are the most notable changes.

Advanced Strategies

You already know that getting to financial independence is only half the puzzle. The other half is making your money last once you get there. That means strategic Roth conversions, drawing down the right accounts in the right order, harvesting capital gains in low-tax years, and managing income to avoid triggering IRMAA surcharges or losing ACA subsidies.

These are strategies that can save six or even seven figures over a retirement. They’re also complicated, easy to get wrong, or cost thousands of dollars when done with a professional.

ProjectionLab now handles this for you.

Tax Strategy

Set a target tax bracket or income ceiling and PL optimizes your plan around it: federal brackets, IRMAA thresholds, ACA subsidy limits, the NIIT cliff, and even income splitting across spouses for joint filers.

You decide your strategy and the Optimizer does the rest.

Roth Conversions

Automatically convert pre-tax savings to fill your target bracket each year. The engine is IRMAA-aware, so it won’t push you into a Medicare surcharge two years down the road. You can quickly see the projected impact on net worth, lifetime taxes, legacy value, and more.

Drawdown

Draw from accounts in optimal order up to your bracket cap, splitting withdrawals across ordinary income and capital gains sources automatically. No more guessing which accounts to tap first.

Gain Harvesting

Realize capital gains in years where you’ll pay little or nothing on them. This includes filling the 0% long-term capital gains bracket, a powerful and commonly overlooked move available to early retirees.

Flexible Spending

Most calculators assume you spend the same amount every year forever. That’s not how it works in real life. When markets drop, you cut back. When things recover, you loosen up.

Flex Spending lets you set rules like: “If the market drops 30% from its all-time high, reduce discretionary spending by 60%.” Tag expenses as Essential or Discretionary and PL adjusts automatically. This can dramatically improve your chance of success without requiring you to save more.

The Optimizer

Behind all of this is a built-in optimizer that searches across strategies, bracket targets, and timing windows to find what works best for your specific plan.

Tell it what you care about (lower lifetime taxes, higher net worth, more ACA subsidies, reduced IRMAA surcharges) and it evaluates hundreds of combinations to find the best approach. It shows you exactly what the winning strategy gains you, with a full breakdown of the trade-offs: tax liability, net legacy, RMDs, IRMAA, and more. Apply it instantly, or explore alternatives.

This is the kind of analysis that would cost thousands from a financial advisor. It runs inside your plan in seconds.

What If Scenarios

Compare Mode got a major upgrade and became one of the most powerful features in the tool.

Quickly overlay your plan with a “What If” scenario and the impact in real time. What if you retired two years earlier? What if you took a higher-paying job but moved to a higher-tax state? What if you dropped to part-time at 45 and started a side business?

Track how milestones shift between plans. Dig into yearly deltas for income, savings, expenses, and net worth. Plot any metric across scenarios. Instead of guessing at trade-offs, you see them.

If Optimize helps you get the most out of a single plan, Compare Mode helps you decide what life you want to build.

More Depth Where It Matters

Beyond optimization and scenario planning, we’ve also filled in many gaps that used to require other tools or manual work.

• Social Security – Enter your Primary Insurance Amount from your SSA statement, pick a claiming age between 62 and 70, and PL computes your benefit automatically with early reduction and delayed retirement credits built in. No more manual calculations or guessing.
• Medicare – Now a fully visible expense card showing estimated Part B, Part D, and supplemental premiums with IRMAA surcharges and a 2-year income lookback. The Tax Strategy engine ties into this too, actively avoiding income levels that would trigger surcharges.
• Estate Planning – A new Estate tab shows your Net Legacy: what heirs actually receive after taxes, costs, and debt. This connects to Roth conversion analysis, so you can see how today’s decisions affect what you leave behind.



• Charitable Giving – QCDs satisfy your RMD while keeping the distribution out of taxable income. Donor-Advised Funds let you contribute appreciated assets, avoid capital gains, and take the full deduction.
• Inherited IRAs – Model Traditional and Roth Inherited IRAs with 10-year withdrawal windows, stretch RMDs, or a custom distribution schedule.
• Mega Backdoor Roth – Model it directly. Fill remaining after-tax space in a 401(k) or 403(b) and route funds in-plan or to a Roth IRA.
• Tax Modeling – State and local taxes are modeled with location-aware scoping. A TCJA sunset toggle shows the impact if those provisions expire. A Tax Analytics heatmap shows how your income falls across brackets by jurisdiction.

Canadian and International Support

ProjectionLab now has dedicated Canadian planning: TFSA and RRSP account types, CPP contributions, OAS and GIS income estimation, Employment Insurance, configurable RRSP-to-RRIF conversion age, and provincial tax presets for Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec.

We’ve also expanded international support for the UK, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, and others. If you’re planning to move abroad or from outside the United States, there’s a good chance we’ve improved support for your situation.

Thank You

I’m grateful to everyone in this community who’s played a role in shaping ProjectionLab over the past few years. And I’m still excited to show up every day to keep making it better for you.

If you’re planning your path to financial independence, or already there and thinking about how to make the most of it, come take another look.

• ProjectionLab
• Reddit Community
• Discord Community

You can sign up, build plans, and save everything for free.

If you want to go deeper with optimization, tax modeling, and scenario analysis, there’s a paid plan (with free trial) that unlocks those features.

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