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The big retirement decisions: pensions, withdrawals, and Medicare costs.
Retirement planning has a cruel feature: the most consequential decisions are one-way doors you walk through exactly once. Take the lump sum or the monthly pension. Start the inherited IRA clock correctly. Guess wrong on Medicare income thresholds and pay surcharges for a year. There are no do-overs, which is why each of these deserves real arithmetic instead of a brochure.
The pension buyout decision is the classic. Employers offer lump sums because it transfers risk to you, and the offers are calculated to be roughly fair on average, which means roughly half of recipients would do better taking the other option. The math that matters is your break-even: lump sum divided by monthly payment gives the months until the checks win. A $250,000 offer against $1,600 a month breaks even around 13 years. Then layer in what you would actually earn investing the lump sum versus the certainty of the checks. The pension calculator runs your real numbers through both scenarios.
For the accumulation years, two tools answer the are-we-okay question. The Coast FIRE calculator tells you whether your current savings can grow untouched to a full retirement, meaning you could downshift to covering just expenses now. And the Solo 401(k) versus SEP IRA comparison settles the self-employed retirement account debate with current IRS limits: the Solo 401(k) usually allows bigger contributions at the same income, but the SEP is simpler. Know the actual dollar difference before you choose.
On the withdrawal side, the inherited IRA calculator handles required minimum distributions under the current 10-year rule, where mistakes carry some of the steepest penalties in the tax code. And the IRMAA calculator maps your income against Medicare's premium cliffs, because the difference between $105,999 and $106,001 of MAGI can be $800 a year in premiums.
Do the pension math before the HR meeting, not after it. Walk in knowing your break-even month, your IRMAA exposure, and your withdrawal schedule, and the entire conversation changes character. These are one-way doors with no do-overs. Ten minutes of honest arithmetic is the cheapest insurance policy you will ever purchase.
Lump sum or monthly pension checks? Run the break-even math.
Open the tool →Compare Solo 401(k) vs SEP IRA contributions under current IRS limits.
Open the tool →Estimate your 2026 Medicare IRMAA surcharge and plan around the cliffs.
Open the tool →Coast FIRE means your retirement savings are large enough to grow to a full retirement without further contributions. Once you hit your Coast number, you only need to earn enough to cover current expenses. The calculator tells you whether you are there and what number you are coasting toward.
At the same net income, a Solo 401(k) generally allows larger total contributions because you can contribute as both employee and employer. The SEP IRA is simpler to administer. For incomes above roughly $30,000 of profit, the Solo 401(k) usually wins on contribution room. Compare with your actual numbers.
The penalty for missing required minimum distributions can be up to 25 percent of the amount you should have withdrawn. Under the 10-year rule, most non-spouse beneficiaries must empty the account within 10 years with annual RMDs in years 1 through 9. The calculator lays out your schedule.