Flexible Retirement Planner Support Forum

Thanks. So the way your retirement income is staged is going to force your portfolio withdrawals to be very lumpy. This makes more sense now. I don't quite understand why a few years with a high withdrawal percent is a problem. If it was me, I'd probably be inclined to seriously lower portfolio ris...

I'm a little confused about why you're seeing such a high withdrawal rate in some years. Assuming you're targeting a 90ish percent probability of success, the planner wouldn't be likely to draw down the portfolio to zero. This is because it'd be tough to target such a complete spend-down while stil...

Jim, When one uses the Goal Seek feature that shows portfolio value needed to sustain withdrawals, the resultant withdrawal percentages are higher than what one would accept in real life. For example, in my situation a $1m retirement portfolio would "work" but the planner shows some years with 12% w...

I think what you're seeing is do to rounding. The number in parenthesis () in that column of the detailed view is the number of failures. If it's not zero, it means there were cases in which the simulation ran out of money that year. So even though it's showing a probability of success of 100%, it'...

Hi Jim, In many of my runs, the planner returns a "Probability of Success 100%" report. But, then, under that, it reports an "Average Spending Shortfall" of, for example, 47%. This number will vary, going slightly up and slightly down. When I look at "Detailed View" I see that virtually every year s...

First, the latest standalone version (04-03-02) let's you adjust the RMD start age. If you have the latest version, you should see that option in settings. The download page is here: https://www.flexibleretirementplanner.com/wp/download/ The spending adjustment multiplier controls how fast "percent...

Jim, Will there be (or is there) a standalone version that allows RMDs to be taken at 72? This seems to be an option in the online version as it appears in the screenshot in the FAQ. But my standalone version only allows age 70 in the settings screen. Also can you explain in more detail how the spen...

Jim, I'm unclear on how taxes are being applied by the planner. In the setup page I have "Income Tax Rate" set as 15%. (Though I am not sure, I would assume this is used as an average rate applied to the withdrawal, and does not take into account progressive taxation.) I have Annual Retirement Spend...

jimr wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 19, 2019 12:59 pm

Have you tried creating an "other expense" cash flow in the last year of the plan with the amount set to the amount you'd like to preserve (eg $2m)?

Hmm. No I had not thought of that!

Jim-- I know this is not the intent of the planner, but is there perhaps a workaround that will allow me to specify (for example) a $2m estate left when the planner period ends? I have played around with the Goal Seek but it's not really accomplishing what I want to do, which is this: Specify an amo...