"Set up my own" begins with the household facts the retirement planner needs, then opens the same three-step account wizard used by Add account on Accounts. Leaving guided setup does not strand a different kind of account: the persistent checklist reads the saved account and points to the next useful action.
Before the account wizard
About you. Every person present, including you and any spouse you add, needs a birth year and month before the wizard continues; the projection can't set an age or RMD clock without one for each of them. A year typed outside 1901–2099 is named in the footer rather than leaving Continue dead with no explanation. Profile applies the same rule to the same fields, since both surfaces now render one fieldset. Filing status opens on what the household already says, so re-entering this step never re-answers it. Skip for now stays available, but Projection's own setup gate is the backstop, not this step. Choosing Stress-test my retirement with an incomplete answer opens About again with copy for that path, and a complete answer sends you straight to Projection rather than into the account steps.
Price data (commercial edition only). The install needs a working price source before Continue enables: a Tiingo key that actually checks out, or Yahoo. Skip for now is the offline escape: it writes nothing at all, including a ticked Yahoo box, so prices and fund details simply won't download until you set a source up later in Settings → Price data.
Step 1 of 3 · Account
Choose the institution printed on the statement, the account type, its legal registration, and a recognizable account name. Account type determines tax treatment except when you deliberately choose Other.
Ownership. Joint is available only for a Brokerage account when both people are present in Profile. Retirement and specialty accounts always have one individual owner because owner birth facts drive account-specific rules such as RMDs.
People and birth facts stay in Profile; the wizard does not create a synthetic Joint person or collect a spouse again.
Custom institutions. Adding an institution stores the statement name for this account and makes it available for future accounts. It does not add a broker connection or a supported CSV format.
Step 2 of 3 · Starting data
Choose the starting evidence you actually have: complete history from opening,
an opening statement before newer transactions, periodic statement snapshots,
or no data yet. Statement routes accept holdings, an entered cash amount
including 0, or an explicit all-zero observation; an untouched form is not a
zero observation.
Starting at $0. Choose Import complete history from account opening when the export includes the first deposit or trade. No opening holding or cash amount is required; the account's starting balance is explicitly $0.
For accounts that can hold cash, identify today's core cash vehicle as a regular cash balance, a money-market fund, or I'm not sure yet. Funds without public ticker symbols can still be entered by name.
Step 3 of 3 · Review
Review is the first save boundary. Back and each named Edit action keep the draft intact; closing or discarding before Review writes no account, ownership link, ticker, cash period, opening row, or snapshot. A supported CSV route creates the account once and then opens import. Canceling that picker keeps the account recoverable from Accounts.
Target/reference-model intent is a separate post-data action. Once real holdings or transactions exist, Choose how to evaluate this account can attach a target, a reference, a mix derived from holdings, or nothing yet; it never turns account creation into a fourth step.
The setup checklist
The checklist tracks your profile → account → how it is evaluated → holdings → first rebalance from saved facts, persists across restarts, and follows the account between pages. If the wizard was opened and left before an account was created, the checklist shows only the two rows that are actually actionable, Tell us about you and Add an account; the other three appear once an account exists, rather than sitting there undone with nothing to point at. An established database that never ran the wizard is never nagged, even with zero accounts. Dismiss it at any time; adding another account makes the relevant account's unfinished work reachable again.