Retired at 75

[oldman]

This is my first year not having earned income. I don't really understand how FireCalc can use my total investment accounts taxable and tax free to determine how much I can take each year. Is there something in the program that handles the taxes part? Also taxes for social security. I probobly didn't study the info thoroughly enough but the calculation said I would have 87% chance. Is it suggested that we try for 100%? Is starting at age 75 as accurate as starting at an earlier age.

 

[REWahoo]

Fro, the FIRECalc FAQ section on the How it Works page:

Why don't you have a space for taxable portfolio and another space for nontaxable portfolio?

FIRECalc ignores taxable versus nontaxable portfolios right now. Since it only uses historical data to determine how a portfolio would behave, with no guesses by anyone about what will happen to inflation, market performance, and so forth, and we don't have historical tax rates for the period for which I have market data, I can't add tax planning without changing the philosophy of the program. Just planning on x% tax rates would make all the historical examples meaningless, when changing tax rates would have at least some effect on the market returns.

If I can figure out how to do this in a way that would not corrupt the results, I'll do it. For now, I prefer to leave the tax planning portion to programs like www.i-orp.com -- an outstanding tool!

 

[oldman]

Monte Carlo Retirement Planner

Online Monte Carlo Retirement Planner

Please try it. What do you think?

 

[Gotadimple]

Online Monte Carlo Retirement Planner

Please try it. What do you think?

This is a good one and it is in our links section. Like Firecalc, it doesn't take taxes into account. Try ORP (Optimal Retirement Calculator and Retirement Decision Support System), it does a simple tax calculation for each withdrawel year, and will tell you what seems to be optimal amount you can spend each year.

If you like it, leave James a small donation.

-- Rita

 

[oldman]

Thanks Rita, I'll give it a try when I have a chance.