What if I stress-tested a decision before making it?
Most decisions get judged against one projection, where everything behaves. The harder question is whether the decision still looks sensible when conditions are poor — and whether what it costs the plan in bad futures is a price you would knowingly pay for what it gives you in ordinary ones.
What shapes the difference
- The decision itself and the month it happens, since timing changes what it exposes.
- Which variables the test varies, and which stay at the values you entered.
- The outcome you care about — solvency, the stop-work year, or a debt-free date.
- The size of the commitment relative to the plan as a whole.
- The reserve left after the decision, and the horizon it then plays out over.
Baseline against the what-if
Run the test on the baseline and on the what-if with everything else identical, then compare the two chances. One number in isolation says very little; the gap between two runs of the same plan is the part that belongs to the decision, and it is the part worth reading closely.
Interpret the difference carefully because it is uncertain too. A gap of one or two percentage points may be noise rather than a meaningful signal. A large difference that persists across repeated tests deserves attention; a small one usually means other factors matter more to the plan.
Questions worth testing
- How large is the gap between the baseline and the what-if?
- Does the gap keep the same direction when the decision moves a year later?
- Which goal does the decision affect most — solvency, stopping work, or debt?
- How much does the gap change when a larger reserve is left after the decision?
How to read the result
Both results show how often each plan succeeds across simulated futures based on your assumptions. They are not probabilities of real events or market forecasts. The difference is uncertain too, so avoid over-interpreting small gaps, and do not treat any threshold as a target. Plan Resilience is a Worthifi Pro feature. This is a planning illustration, not financial advice.
How it works in the app
Fork a what-if for the decision you're weighing, then run Plan Resilience on both the baseline and the what-if. The difference in chance of success is the probability cost — or gain — of that one decision.
- Create a what-if for the decision you're weighing.
- Run “Test your plan” under Plan Resilience on both the baseline and the what-if.
- Compare the two chances of success.
Requires Worthifi Pro
Model this yourself