IRS — Retirement Plans
Official tax rules, contribution limits, and early-distribution guidance. Use the primary source when tax details matter.
The source shelf
If a number matters, the source and assumptions travel with it.
These primary records and inspectable models help check a financial-independence assumption. Inclusion is editorial—not a claim that a tool can predict your future or that retirement should be the finish line.
HealthCare.gov
The official marketplace for pricing the health-insurance bridge between leaving work and Medicare eligibility.
Early Retirement Now — Safe Withdrawal Rate Series
A deep, technically detailed body of work on safe withdrawal rates and long early-retirement horizons.
cFIREsim
A historical-cycle retirement simulator widely used for exploring assumptions. Its output is still a model, not a guarantee.
Bogleheads Wiki
A community-maintained starting point for low-cost investing concepts and the details behind them.
Every number needs a source.
Prefer primary agencies, disclosed methods, inspectable assumptions, and FIRE resources with enough substance to disagree with. Every essay's numerical claims end with a source or the named model and assumption set that produced them.