FireCalc question....

[CindyBlue]

As I get closer to retirement (and more and more nervous!) I'm trying out many different scenarios on FireCalc. This time I tried putting in my pension and social security, which will come to about $40,000 per year together, and only put $10,000 in for my portfolio, to try to simulate having no portfolio. It gave a "100%" spending amount of $1,600 a year. That seems odd, considering I'll have a guaranteed income of $40,000 per year with the pension and social security.
Can anyone explain this to me?

 

[MichaelB]

For pension and SS did you input monthly or annual amounts? FIRECalc looks for annual, not monthly.

 

[CindyBlue]

I put in annual amounts for each.

 

[MichaelB]

Is the retirement date the same year as the SS and pension start dates? They also need to be in sync.

 

[tb001]

Ah, Michael, that’s helpful! I noticed some weirdness with SS income as well, so I stopped including it and just added it into the max spend number it gave us. Not 100% kosher, as we’ll have several years without it if we ER, but a helpful data point.

 

[USGrant1962]

I think you ran into the issue described in this thread: Firecalc spending analysis
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93070

 

[CindyBlue]

I've never put them in sync, just put in the actual dates of each even happening (retirement in 2019, SS starts in 2021, pension starts in 2020. I haven't seen anywhere that said they had to be in sync. I just assumed that FireCalc would make me take from my portfolio until I had the income from the pension, and then from the portfolio and the pension until SS starts. Is that a wrong assumption to make?

 

[CardsFan]

FWIW, I just tried the same, and darned if I didn't get the same answer.

I used 10k portfolio, 20k pension (inflation adjusted), 20k ss, starting both in 2021, 30k spending and 30 year retirement. Investigate 100% success.

For kicks, I did a normal run, and it gave me 0% success.

I also re-ran my own numbers, and they look OK.

Something funky going on.

 

[MichaelB]

I've never put them in sync, just put in the actual dates of each even happening (retirement in 2019, SS starts in 2021, pension starts in 2020. I haven't seen anywhere that said they had to be in sync. I just assumed that FireCalc wold make me take from my portfolio until I had the income from the pension, and then from the portfolio and the pension until SS starts. Is that a wrong assumption to make?

There's a tab titled "not retired". The default retirement date is 2018, try changing it to 2019.

 

[CindyBlue]

Did that in my initial calculation...
I sure appreciate your responses - thank you for trying to help me figure this out!

 

[CindyBlue]

I agree - I just read through the thread you sent me (thank you!) and it seems to be the same problem.
When I changed the portfolio to $100,000 it came out more to what I'd expect.
Edited to add: Whoops, I'd put in $1,000,000 - no wonder it came out well (smile!) I'm going back to try $100,000!

 

[CindyBlue]

Just tried $100,000,and $200,000, and still am not up to the minimum that I'd be getting for just the SS and the pension...

 

[braumeister]

Thread has been moved to the FIRECalc support forum.

 

[MichaelB]

So, trying to reproduce this issue. It happens when using the "Investigate" function and choosing "Search for settings that will get a success rate of as close to % as possible (usually within 1%) by changing..." It looks like it projecting a spending amount that is only portfolio and doesn't include the pensions. This is an error, I'll make sure to report it.

As a work-around, I would input my pension and SS amounts and dates, the retirement date, the minimum portfolio I expect, and then try different spending amounts to see where the 100% and 95% levels are. Then do the same with different portfolio levels. Change the portfolio, then look at different spending levels. It's a bit cumbersome but gets to the same result.

 

[CindyBlue]

Thank you for helping! I will try what you suggest, and I look forward to the fix (smile!)