Variable Expenses in FireCALC

[cinman2000]

I am 6-18 months away from RE and have a variable year by year expense projection taking into account car replacements, mortgage end, college expenses and big vacations. My question is since my expenses vary so much from year to year, what is the best way to enter this in FireCalc? I have toyed with some methods such as averaging over common period and then using some off chart spending adjustments. How have others handled this?

 

[Katsmeow]

If you are a supporter you can do manual entry of spending changes and so change spending from year to year.

If not you can do an offchart spending increase or reduction. That isn't very flexible though so I do the manual entry part.

 

[rodi]

I have pre-college kids - I did an off chart adjustment for when I stop funding the 529's. (I'm hoping to have enough in the 529's to pay for the education.)

I did not do off chart adjustments for new cars, home maintenance like new roofs, etc. Those are averaged - and saved for. So I've got a spending bucket for the next car fund, and for the next roof fund.

Same with vacations. On years I take smaller vacations, the money rolls over towards the big vacations. So averaging works out fine.

 

[cinman2000]

If you are a supporter you can do manual entry of spending changes and so change spending from year to year.

This sounds great. I am going to take a look at what it takes to become a "supporter"...thanks!