Get Claude →
Retirement Estimator →
2026 — ITDT LLC
Claude interviews a Retirement Estimator user one question at a time and writes a plan file. The app imports the file and does all the math. Claude does the interviewing and the app does the calculating, and the app itself contains no AI at all.
Retirement Estimator is powerful, and the price of that is a lot to enter: incomes, investments, expenses, transfers between them, schedules, growth and taxes. Setting up a real plan by hand takes time, and some understanding of how the pieces fit together.
The first idea was an on-device AI assistant built into the app. It was shelved. The small model that fits on a phone couldn't reliably explain a plan, let alone build one.
A Claude skill is a folder of instructions and reference material that Claude loads when it needs it. This one teaches Claude how Retirement Estimator models money, and it includes the app's own help. With it, Claude asks the user plain questions one at a time and then writes a plan file. The app imports that file and shows the graphs.
Claude asks the questions and the app does the calculating. Neither does the other's job.
| AI-agnostic app | The plan file (.financialplan) is a generic, readable format. Any AI or
program could write one. The app has no AI code and no dependency on Claude. |
| Nothing on a server | Everything happens on the user's own device and in their own Claude account. No ITDT server is involved while it runs, so a server outage can't break it. |
| The app calculates | The finance engine is far too detailed for an AI to reproduce, so Claude never computes results. It reads them from the app: a graph screenshot, a summary, or a CSV report. |
| Check before paying | The app checks the whole plan before asking for any purchase, so any problems show up before anyone buys. |
| Claude as agent | For privacy, Claude is treated like a person using the app on the user's behalf. What the user tells Claude is held by Anthropic under the user's account, the imported plan is held by the app on the device, and ITDT LLC receives none of it. |
| Token awareness | Reading a large CSV report uses a lot of a user's Claude allowance. The skill tells the user before it asks for one, and it keeps its checks focused. |
The whole path ran on an iPad simulator. Claude ran in Safari at claude.ai with the skill uploaded. It interviewed the user and produced a plan. The file was downloaded and opened from the Files app, and Retirement Estimator imported it and showed the graphs.
The test sent several changes back into the skill: a budget option, tax on income, and the exact download steps a user follows.
Claude's suggestions are not financial advice. For financial advice, consult a qualified financial advisor.