Missing Income & Expenses

Post questions about how to use the planner, user inputs, how the planner works, and comments and suggestions.
Post Reply
chuckallison
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:08 pm

Missing Income & Expenses

Post by chuckallison »

Jim-

My pension started a few years ago (say age 60), so under additional inputs i entered 60 for the start age of my pension. The issue is that the FRP doesn't seem to account for that income in its output. However, when I set the start age to my current age FRP seems to fully account for it. FRP also seems to ignore my mortgage expenses if I enter an earlier start age (again, say 60), but accounts for them if I enter my current age rather than 60.

chuck
jimr
Posts: 821
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:48 pm

Re: Missing Income & Expenses

Post by jimr »

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for writing.

I suspect the issue stems from the fact that the entry for "current age" on the main input sheet sets the "beginning of time" for the simulation. Any cash flows that you list as occurring earlier than the start year of the planner (your current age) won't be counted.

So if you're already retired, it's probably best to set your retirement age to your current age.

As a general rule, the planner is forward looking, and all the account balances that you enter are expected to be current. So the idea is that any pension or social security payments in the past would have already either been saved or spent, so there's no need to record them in the planner.

I think I'm misunderstanding what you're expecting the planner to do in this case. Perhaps some additional comments on how you expected the inputs to be handled might help. I'm trying to decide if this is some sort of bug or more of a weakness in naming conventions and/or documentation.

Jim
chuckallison
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:08 pm

Re: Missing Income & Expenses

Post by chuckallison »

Jim-

You asked what I would expect FRP to do with the input. As my pension goes until the end of plan, I'd expect FRP to include income like my yearly pension from the start of the FRP output (e.g. starting with a current age of 62) until the end of plan. I’d also expect expenses that I enter as starting earlier (e.g. a mortgage) to be accounted for in the plan until the mortgage was paid off.

chuck
jimr
Posts: 821
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:48 pm

Re: Missing Income & Expenses

Post by jimr »

Chuck,

Thanks for the additional comments. Now I see what the issue is.

I thought the planner would just ignore any payments/expenses slated for years earlier than the current age. Now I see that the entire cash flow - for all years - gets ignored if the start year is too early.

That's a bug and I'll put in on the to-do list for the next release. This is an issue with 02.02.00 and all earlier versions of the planner.

It's important to note that this is a fairly well-contained issue. As long as you never set up an additional input item with a "start age" that's younger than your current age, you'll never see this issue.

Thanks again for bearing with me and helping me get to the bottom of this.

Jim
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 21 guests