Great question! Basically we take where your finances currently are and calculate where they would be around retirement if you made no changes vs. where they would be if you applied our optimizations.

The value comes from: (1) tax advantages, (2) free money from employer benefits, (3) investment compounding, (4) increased earnings, and (5) fee savings.

We’re generally assuming our recommendations are implemented for 5 years and tax-advantaged retirement and health savings recommendations are totally invested until retirement at the age of 67.

For debt stuff, we’re assuming recommendations are implemented until the debt is paid off.

For everything else - switching credit cards etc - we’re assuming the change is implemented for 5 years.