Learn the Ropes

Short, focused videos that walk you through every corner of Rock My Retirement.

Getting Started

These videos will get you up and running quickly.

Overview (1:45)

A high-level tour of what Rock My Retirement does, how it works, and what you can expect.

User Interface (6:35)

A walkthrough of menus, modules, knobs, and controls.

2D Graph (8:00)

How to use the 2D graph to view individual retirement scenarios over time.

3D Graph (4:03)

The 3D graph stacks all your scenarios together so you can see how changes affect your entire retirement picture.

Success Meter (2:57)

What the Success Meter gauge is telling you and why Monte Carlo analysis gives you more precision.

Sandboxes (4:35)

How to use sandboxes to safely experiment with different what-if scenarios.

Social Security

Start Age (6:47)

How your benefits change based on claiming age.

Spousal Benefits (2:50)

How spousal benefits work, including eligibility and calculations.

Excess Earnings (5:43)

What happens to your Social Security if you earn too much while collecting.

Investments

Asset Allocations (5:55)

How to enter your 401k, IRA, and brokerage allocations.

Roth Conversions (4:27)

What Roth accounts are, why conversions matter, and how they eliminate required minimum distributions.

Bank Account Min/Max (4:14)

How to set minimum and maximum balance targets for your bank accounts.

Insurance Basics

An introduction to modeling life insurance in Rock My Retirement.

Expenses

Flexibility (10:01)

How to set spending triggers that automatically reduce expenses when the market dips.

Inflation (4:36)

How Rock My Retirement adjusts your expenses for inflation using CPI data.

Pensions

Inflation Protection (2:25)

Why checking whether your pension adjusts for inflation is critical.

Basis (2:45)

How after-tax pension contributions reduce your tax bill in retirement.

Strategies

Withdrawal Strategies (5:20)

Pro-rata vs. waterfall methods for deciding which accounts to draw from.

Reinvestment Strategies (9:39)

How to direct surplus cash back into your accounts.

Roth Conversion Strategies (5:07)

Advanced guide to timing Roth conversions for low-tax years.

Planning Options

Alter Plans (7:40)

Contingency planning: deferred retirement, working longer, and downsizing.

Pre-Retirement Growth (4:48)

Three ways to model how your assets grow before retirement.

Loop Back (3:20)

How the Loop Back feature extends scenarios beyond available historical data.

Monte Carlo Simulation

How It Works (9:47)

A peek under the hood at how Monte Carlo simulations generate thousands of realistic scenarios.

Punishment (3:07)

How to stress-test your retirement by adding simulated bear markets and inflation spikes.

AI Optimization Engine

Overview (5:23)

What the AI optimization engine does, how to set it up, and how to interpret the results.

Objectives (5:09)

The four optimization objectives and how to weight them to match your priorities.

How It Works (9:06)

A deep dive into the genetic algorithm — why brute force can't solve this problem, how the AI learns to make smarter guesses with each generation, and why that matters for your retirement.

Stock Allocations (3:19)

Why the AI engine does not optimize brokerage allocations and what it focuses on instead.