I'm trying to do some more specific retirement planning projections and a lot of the tools I've tried (firecalc, etc.) are less helpful than I would like for dialing in specific scenarios. Specifically my approach to date has been to lean into the benefits of maintaining a lower AGI to capture the benefits of ACA subsidies and, to a lesser degree, student loan subsidies / forgiveness.
I also have my own business and my income is neither consistent nor consistently increasing. That said I have generally been successful at hitting income targets that I set for myself and whether those targets go up or down on any given year is effectively up to me. So I can dial my yearly income up or down by adjusting my working hours to hit a range of AGIs. I always max my solo 401k, which in '24 will allow for 100% of biz income up to $23000 then drops for additional biz income after that. Essentially after I have sufficient income to max my solo 401k, max my traditional IRA and cover expenses my effective tax rate really starts to increase.
So the biggest issue I have when trying to create FIRE related projections is the inability to dial in something that approximates my effective tax rate accurately over time (including ACA and IDR payments not covered by subsides, break points in access to tax advantaged savings vehicles after maxing out employee solo 401k limit, effective tax rate change at SL forgiveness...) since it doesn't line up with the expected tax rate for my income.
Then the second biggest issue I have is the assumption of consistent (or consistently increasing) income by most calculators that make it hard to get more granular when it comes to optimizing yearly pre-FIRE income / savings. Ideally I'd like my retirement calculator to identify break points where additional working income / working hours on any given year start to offer diminishing returns and suggest some possible options for income phase out over time rather than forcing me to just set a hard stop one year on either my birthday or December 31st.
I'm kind of at a loss for how to factor all of this in in such a way that it will allow me to be confident that I'm fully leveraging my flexibility here.
Are there tools that I can use that will allow me to take these variables into account?
I also have my own business and my income is neither consistent nor consistently increasing. That said I have generally been successful at hitting income targets that I set for myself and whether those targets go up or down on any given year is effectively up to me. So I can dial my yearly income up or down by adjusting my working hours to hit a range of AGIs. I always max my solo 401k, which in '24 will allow for 100% of biz income up to $23000 then drops for additional biz income after that. Essentially after I have sufficient income to max my solo 401k, max my traditional IRA and cover expenses my effective tax rate really starts to increase.
So the biggest issue I have when trying to create FIRE related projections is the inability to dial in something that approximates my effective tax rate accurately over time (including ACA and IDR payments not covered by subsides, break points in access to tax advantaged savings vehicles after maxing out employee solo 401k limit, effective tax rate change at SL forgiveness...) since it doesn't line up with the expected tax rate for my income.
Then the second biggest issue I have is the assumption of consistent (or consistently increasing) income by most calculators that make it hard to get more granular when it comes to optimizing yearly pre-FIRE income / savings. Ideally I'd like my retirement calculator to identify break points where additional working income / working hours on any given year start to offer diminishing returns and suggest some possible options for income phase out over time rather than forcing me to just set a hard stop one year on either my birthday or December 31st.
I'm kind of at a loss for how to factor all of this in in such a way that it will allow me to be confident that I'm fully leveraging my flexibility here.
Are there tools that I can use that will allow me to take these variables into account?
