Bucket Strategy Planner — Divide Your Portfolio for Retirement Security

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Retirement Strategy

Bucket Strategy Planner

Divide your retirement portfolio into three buckets — cash, bonds, stocks — and model how each refills the next.

Your Portfolio

Total Portfolio ($)

Annual Expenses ($)

Bucket Allocation

💧 Cash

10%

🏦 Bonds

30%

📈 Stocks

60%

💧

Bucket 1 · Cash

—

10%

🏦

Bucket 2 · Bonds

—

30%

📈

Bucket 3 · Stocks

—

60%

Return Assumptions

Bond Return 3.5%

Stock Return 7.0%

Refill Timeline — How Each Bucket Sustains You

Bucket 1 — Cash (spend now)

Covers immediate expenses, no market risk

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Bucket 2 — Bonds (refills bucket 1)

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Bucket 3 — Stocks (long-term growth)

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Cash Runway

—

years of expenses

Total Runway

—

estimated years covered

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Bucket Depletion & Refill Over Time

Bucket Strategy Planner

The Bucket Strategy Planner helps retirees visualize how to divide their portfolio into three purpose-built buckets: cash for immediate spending, bonds for medium-term income, and stocks for long-term growth. It models how each bucket refills the one before it. Enter your total portfolio and annual expenses, adjust the allocation sliders to set how much goes into each bucket, and the calculator shows you how many years your cash covers, how much income your bonds generate annually, and how fast your stock bucket compounds. The refill timeline lays out the cascade logic from stocks to bonds to cash, a 30-year chart tracks each bucket's balance over time, and a smart insight flag alerts you if your cash buffer falls short of the recommended 1 to 3 year window that protects you from having to sell stocks in a down market.