Flexible Retirement Planner Support Forum

Hey Jim,

Let me start off by saying (as I have in the past) that FRP is simply the most valuable tool I have in my financial plan. I have modeled more than 50 different scenarios which each black swan event I can think of. Whenever I read of some new fear that investors should supposedly worry about, I first run the idea through FRP to see how big of an impact that would have on my plan. My spouse says FRP is my "security blanket", but I just see it as an incredible tool and one that we users are lucky to have found.

Now onto my question. Is there any reason why the Annual Retirement Spending field can not have a negative number? This seems like an odd question I'm sure, but perhaps I don't use FRP in the normal way.

I like to build plans backwards in a sense. I never input anything into the Annual Retirement Spending field. Instead I have a full blown data set in the Additional Inputs fields. Then I like to enter hyper-conservative numbers... like very high taxes, very long life, zero percent returns, etc. Once I can make a plan work with these conservative inputs, I then enter small amounts into the Annual Retirement Spending field to see how much additional spending is allowed within the plan given the worst black swan event. Having the ability to enter a negative number there would allow me to reverse the concept. I realize that I could add money to the Annual Retirement Income field instead but then that number gets taxed so it's not likely what I'm after.

Thank you for the incredible software.
Mike

Mike,

I'm glad you've found the planner helpful in your process. It's always good to hear stories of how folks use the tool, especially when it's working for them.

On your question, the code would probably work fine if negative entries were allowed in retirement spending, but unfortunately, "probably" is doing a lot of work in that statement and I'd need to do a thorough code review/testing cycle to ensure that's really true.

Since the simulation code is pretty old at this point, and truthfully, I'm not getting younger either, I tend to error on the side of not touching it unless there's a really good reason.

Could you get the desired effect from using an additional inputs retirement income entry with the taxable percent set to zero? I realize It's a few more clicks to change the value and update the entry, but I think it'd behave the way you want.

Jim

Yeah, I know what you mean about not wanting to mess around with something that isn't broken. I wholehearted agree. You're right about using an another entry in Additional Inputs. That will work. I guess I was looking for the path of least clicking.

I can't believe this software hasn't received any kind of DIY investor notoriety. Some Bogleheads talk about it from time to time but it's not as commonly mentioned as it should be in my opinion. In fact, that dichotomy worries me sometimes... so few people seem to mention using it (or how awesome it is) that I wonder if there is something wrong with the software that I'm not seeing.

From the standpoint of financial planning, there is nothing more I could ask for.