Flexible Retirement Planner Support Forum

Longtime user of FRP, first time posting. I'd just like to say this is a wonderful planning tool and the one I have been using for several years now. So glad I found it as the majority of online calcs just aren't particularly useful.

Anyway, on to my questions. I am trying now to really get my head around exactly what is in each of the columns in the Detailed Table View. I've read through the Planner Output page in the FAQ but it only has a brief description. Is this documented in detail anywhere?

In tandem with a description of all columns, I am trying to understand specifically the "% Expenses to Fund" and "Expenses to Fund" columns at the moment, as they aren't what I was expecting (if I understand them correctly). Starting with expenses equal to a 3% withdrawal rate and using the Risk Averse avg. return of 6%, std. deviation of 4.3 my % Expenses to Fund drops gradually across the first 10 years from 100 to 90%. If I understand these columns, that tells me that the returns are calculated at less than the expenses. I thought this must have something to do with the std. deviation impact to the portfolio so I set that to 0 and re-ran but still get the same basic results i.e. the % To Fund drops and I also do not see a 6% return reflected in the portfolio value as expected. In fact, it drops across the first 6 years, which I don't understand. With returns set to 6% and zero std. deviation, a WD rate equivalent to 3% of the starting portfolio, shouldn't the result be a roughly 3% gain each year?

The % expenses funded column is connected with the spending policy. From year to year this column describes what's going on with the spending policy decision rules in terms of how much of desired spending will actually be funded by the simulation logic. If you set the spending policy to "stable" you'll notice that the value in this column stays at 100% for all years because the spending policy decision rules are disabled when using the stable spending policy.

There isn't any more other documentation for these columns other than what's on that planner output doc page, but I'm happy to answer any other questions you have.

One additional trick with this table is that you can right-click on any column header for a menu to show/hide columns and you can right-click on any cell for a menu that lets you print or export the table data.

Maybe this can help someone.

To better understand the columns and descriptions, I copied the detailed view and pasted that into a spreadsheet. Above each column in the spreadsheet I added a trimmed down description from the online help. For example, above "Median Portfolio Value" I added "SUM of Taxable, Tax Def., & Tax Free col's to the right."

Jim - thanks for the reply. Still confused about the last part of my post though related to std. deviation and how that plays in the results. I'll go back and read more in the inputs section of the help.

In fact, it drops across the first 6 years, which I don't understand. With returns set to 6% and zero std. deviation, a WD rate equivalent to 3% of the starting portfolio, shouldn't the result be a roughly 3% gain each year?

Sorry, I missed this is the last go around.

The amounts shown in the year-to-year detailed results table are all shown in present value (2020) dollars (eg adjusted for inflation).

If the amount in a given column stays the same from year to year, that means it's exactly keeping up with inflation. If an amount decreases that means the real value is decreasing from year to year after being adjusted for inflation. If an amount increases, that means the amount is growing at a rate greater than the inflation rate.

So my guess is that this explains the "missing" 3% return you were expecting to see as portfolio growth, but let me know if that's not it.