Roth ladder

Most of our savings sit pre-tax and the house isn't paid off. Both problems answer to the same trick. With little other income, each retirement year's standard deduction and the 10% and 12% brackets are a coupon for moving money out of a traditional IRA: convert up to the bracket top, pay single-digit tax, and five years later that rung is yours penalty-free. We wanted to know whether those seasoned rungs could kill the mortgage, and what the IRS takes along the way.

The ladder view sizes each year's conversion after deductions, taxes every rung, tracks when each one unlocks, and lands the seasoned money on the mortgage as principal lumps. The bridge view answers the question that comes straight after: a ladder pays nothing for five years, and the conversion tax has to come from outside it too. Enter your spending and the accounts you can reach before 59½, and it finds the smallest pile that never runs dry, including the capital gains a conversion can push out of the 0% bracket.