The bucket approach sets your allocation by when you'll need the money, not by your age. Money you'll spend soon stays out of the market. Money you won't touch for years can grow.
This tool illustrates the share of a portfolio you'd hold in stable assets (e.g., cash, a high-yield savings account, money market) versus growth assets held for the long run (most commonly a broad stock index fund), based on when each dollar is needed. It doesn't judge whether your portfolio is large enough to last. For that, start with your FI number.
Your numbers
$total
The invested balance you're allocating. Optional. Leave it blank to see the split as percentages only.
$/yr
What you expect to draw from the portfolio in a typical year, in today's dollars. Adjustments for specific years come next.
Adjustments
Optional. These reshape the need in specific years inside your ten-year reserve. A cost adds to a year; an income source that starts later subtracts from it. Anything scheduled past year 10 sits in the long-term equity bucket already, so it won't change the split.
Your ten-year reserve$800,000
Stable
19%
$384,000
Growth
81%
$1,616,000
How this works: The next ten years of spending are held in reserve, split by when you'll need each year's money. The first two years stay entirely in stable assets. From year three on, each year holds ten percent in growth assets for every year until you need it, so thirty percent at three years out, rising to one hundred percent at ten years. Everything beyond your ten-year reserve is the long-term bucket, held fully in growth assets. Stable means holdings you can draw on without worrying about the market: cash, a high-yield savings account, money market, or similar cash-like assets you can pull from at par. The first two years stay in these. For the stable portion of years three through ten, high-quality bonds matched to when you'll need the money are a reasonable choice too, since that money has a little more time before it's spent. Growth means assets you hold for the long run, most commonly a broad stock index fund. The role can be filled other ways; what matters here is that this money isn't needed for years and is expected to move with the market in the meantime. Everything is in today's dollars. This is a snapshot of a target allocation, not a projection. In practice you refill the near-term buckets from the long-term one over time as markets allow. It doesn't account for taxes, account location, sequence of returns, or which specific holdings you use.