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Adding a Spouse to Your Plan
For married couples, effective financial planning requires a complete view of the household’s finances. PocketPlan allows you to add your spouse to your plan so both partners’ income, assets, retirement timelines, and financial goals can be modeled together.
By combining both partners’ financial information, PocketPlan creates a joint retirement strategy that reflects the financial needs of the entire household.
This approach ensures that retirement projections, Social Security timing, and long-term sustainability calculations remain accurate.
Why Joint Retirement Planning Is Important
Retirement planning for couples differs significantly from individual planning. Two people bring different incomes, retirement ages, and financial resources into the plan.
A joint financial plan allows PocketPlan to evaluate these factors together and calculate a more accurate Retirement Score for the household.
Survivor Financial Protection
One of the most important aspects of retirement planning for couples is planning for the surviving spouse.
PocketPlan’s financial simulations account for scenarios where one partner passes away before the other. This ensures the plan evaluates whether the surviving spouse can maintain financial stability.
This factor plays a critical role in Monte Carlo retirement simulations, which test thousands of financial scenarios to measure long-term sustainability.
Optimizing Social Security Benefits
Couples have additional options when deciding when to claim Social Security benefits.
PocketPlan can model multiple claiming strategies for both spouses, helping determine the timing that produces the highest combined lifetime benefit.
By coordinating benefit timing between partners, couples can significantly increase retirement income over time.
Unified Household Retirement Score
Once both partners are included in the plan, PocketPlan generates a single Retirement Score for the entire household.
This score reflects the probability that the couple can maintain their desired lifestyle throughout retirement.
It takes into account:
both life expectancies
household spending
joint assets and investments
retirement income sources
The unified score helps couples make better financial decisions together.
How to Add a Spouse in PocketPlan
Adding a spouse connects their financial information to your existing retirement plan so PocketPlan can model the household as a single financial unit.
Step 1: Access Plan Settings
Navigate to the My Plan section or open Personal Information within the PocketPlan app.
This section contains the settings used to configure your retirement plan.
Step 2: Update Relationship Status
Look for an option to:
change your relationship status to Married
select Add Spouse
Once selected, PocketPlan will begin the process of linking your spouse’s information to your plan.
Step 3: Enter Your Spouse’s Details
You will be prompted to enter key information about your spouse.
Required details typically include:
Full Name
Date of Birth
Employment Status
Income Information
Expected Retirement Age
Separate Financial Accounts
These details allow PocketPlan to calculate household retirement projections accurately.
Spouse Information That Affects the Plan
The data you enter for your spouse has a direct impact on financial projections and retirement modeling.
Date of Birth
Your spouse’s birthdate determines their life expectancy assumptions and eligibility for retirement benefits such as Social Security.
This information is essential for modeling retirement timelines.
Income and Contributions
Your spouse’s income contributes to the total household savings capacity before retirement.
Higher combined income can increase the ability to:
save more for retirement
invest additional funds
strengthen long-term financial security
Separate Assets
If your spouse has individual investment or retirement accounts, these assets can be included in the plan.
Once added, they become part of the joint capital pool, increasing the household’s Projected Net Worth and improving retirement projections.
Security and Account Access
Adding a spouse to your retirement plan does not automatically grant them access to your PocketPlan account.
The system only uses the spouse’s financial data to generate accurate projections.
If desired, shared account access can be configured separately using shared login credentials.
This ensures both privacy and accurate financial modeling.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should couples create a joint retirement plan?
A joint retirement plan allows couples to model both incomes, assets, life expectancies, and retirement benefits to produce a more accurate financial strategy.
Does adding a spouse change the Retirement Score?
Yes. Adding a spouse allows PocketPlan to calculate a household Retirement Score based on combined finances and life expectancy projections.
Can separate assets be included in a joint retirement plan?
Yes. Individual assets owned by each spouse can be added to the plan and included in the total household net worth.
Does adding a spouse give them access to my account?
No. Adding a spouse only includes their financial data for projections. Account access must be configured separately.
