Anyone else obsessed with FIRECalc?

[jollystomper]

Obsession is in the eye of the beholder . Run it once a month, not obsessed. Run it multiple times a day for weeks on end, well...

When I first learned of it, I ran it a lot primarily to get an understanding how to use it and to understanding how the "what if" component worked. After that I ran it (along with other calculators) at year/end/beginning, or when a major or potentially major financial aspect was to be considered (e.g. accounting for a major expense, strong indications of upcoming Megacorp layoff, assess future impact of resetting resetting AA).

Since retiring I have run it several times a year, as with other calculators,and I do not consider that "obsessed". Moderation in all things...

 

[MarieIG]

I've run it a few times; but at this stage the priorities are reducing expenses, moderating taxes, and making things work with what we have.

 

[brett]

Never used it. Never had an inclination to use it.

 

[pacergal]

I used it every few months in the few years prior to retirement.
I still run it about once a year, 5 years in.
It may become less as time goes on, but it is a great tool.

 

[Ready]

I looked at Firecalc frequently before I retired just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. The basic scenario I ran was to look for a 100% success rate over 35 years with 55% in equities. I kept getting the same results. A 3.5% WR survived 100% of the time.

So now I don’t bother using Firecalc anymore. I just look at our overall net worth and calculate 3.5% to see how things generally look. If we have a major market correction maybe I’ll run the numbers again. But until then there’s really not much new info to be found in Firecalc so I don’t see any purpose in looking at it any more.

 

[flyingaway]

I probably do FIRECal simulations once a month, just for fun, because I know what kind of results I will get.

 

[Major Tom]

I know this isn't considered a serious "problem", but does anyone else obsessively run their numbers in FIRECALC? haha
I'm over four years into retirement yet I still very often run the numbers in addition to checking my investment account way too much. It is starting to annoy me that I keep doing it.

Haha, I can relate! I run Firecalc quite often, even though I know full well that it's going to give me the same results. I have always been good at repetitive behavior

 

[FANOFJESUS]

Has anybody noticed that 40-60 stocks seems to be the sweet spot on Firecalc.

 

[tdv2]

There was a time before I FIRE'd that I was running every calculator I could get my hands on. In some sense I was interested in the different methodologies employed ie. historical vs Monte Carlo. As others have said, at the end of the day, no calculator can provide results that anticipate all the scenarios that may happen in the future. In any case, I do still like Fidelity RIP as my go to calculator because to me it seems to be one of the most conservative.

 

[tmm99]

I wouldn't call it an obsession, but I do check Firecalc several times a year just for fun, although I retired back in 2015. I'm getting older every year (duh) so the remaining year decreases every year but my portfolio has been going up, so my spending potential has increased by around 30%, which is nice. I was a little worried when DJIA went down to 18000s last year though. It's much more fun to check Firecalc when my asset is up, obviously.

 

[razztazz]

Has anybody noticed that 40-60 stocks seems to be the sweet spot on Firecalc.

Yes. I noticed that long ago. In fact, if I recall, with more feathering, it's actually 38%-62% that got me the largest initial pull with 100% survival. I used "Long Interest Rate", though rather than bonds but the difference between all those options is really pretty close anyway..

 

[Dtail]

There was a time before I FIRE'd that I was running every calculator I could get my hands on. In some sense I was interested in the different methodologies employed ie. historical vs Monte Carlo. As others have said, at the end of the day, no calculator can provide results that anticipate all the scenarios that may happen in the future. In any case, I do still like Fidelity RIP as my go to calculator because to me it seems to be one of the most conservative.

True in that it is using Monte Carlo, plus only goes to a 90% success rate.

 

[bada bing]

I ran firecalc back in December. I don't find retirement calculators too distracting. What has attracted my attention too much is a new found obsession with checking account balances almost daily. Part of the reason I don't obsess on firecalc is the strong feeling that the account balances I would enter aren't "real". I've had better annual return percentages than 2020 in the past, but 2020 almost seems counterfeit for some reason. Last run at firecalc was well into 100% and it would only be further today.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

Yes. I noticed that long ago. In fact, if I recall, with more feathering, it's actually 38%-62% that got me the largest initial pull with 100% survival. I used "Long Interest Rate", though rather than bonds but the difference between all those options is really pretty close anyway..

I have read before that it is not wise to take stocks above 70% or 75% based on the risk level.

 

[SecondCor521]

Has anybody noticed that 40-60 stocks seems to be the sweet spot on Firecalc.

Assuming you're looking at success percentage, then that's generally true. Although it depends on several variables:

1. Time period. Shorter time periods will favor a heavier bond allocation; this is because if you only look at a short time period, a bad run in the stock market (like 1973/1974) deals an early mortal blow to the portfolio and it can't handle the subsequent withdrawals. Conversely, longer time periods tend to favor stocks, as they are needed to battle the cumulative effects of inflation over the long haul.

2. Pension income. If a large portion of your expenses are covered by a pension, I think that a higher equity allocation wins out.

3. How safe your spending level is. If you're not spending very much, then any allocation could be safe. For a ridiculous example, spend 0.5% of your assets and you can be anywhere between 100/0 and 0/100. What I typically do is find out what the 95% safe spending level is with the investigate tab first, and then plug that in for my spending, then ask it to investigate AA.

Finally, for pretty safe spending levels, there is often a range of AA that has an equivalent historical success rate (such as 95% or 100%). In this case, though, the average terminal portfolio value is generally higher with higher stock allocations. For this reason, my rule of thumb is to have my AA at the highest stock allocation that is consistent with the highest success rate. So for example, if I can get a 95% success rate with anywhere between 30/70 and 70/30, I'll go with 70/30 due to the average terminal portfolio being the highest in that range.

 

[kgtest]

OCD yes. I built my own calc, run i-orp, firecalc on a regular basis. I like playing with my own numbers in my own calc the most.

I am not ER yet, but its been fun to track actual vs expected progress as well. So far we are on track to ER at 50 if we would like to with maintaining our current level of spend all throughout our lives to 99. I run worst case and best case scenarios and they all look good beyond me literally not producing income from now until ER.

 

[Skyward1]

I tend to run it when the market goes up, which is, well... pretty often lately. Fast approaching retirement so I'll just say I'm a little infatuated with Firecalc rather than obsessed.

 

[NW-Bound]

When I first discovered FIRECalc and this forum, I was still figuring out my ER, and just started to track my expenses to know what I should know.

Now into the 9th year of retirement, and my annual expenses are no longer in the 6 figures as when the kids were still on college and had not flown the coop, I stopped running FIRECalc long ago.

I never ran any retirement calculator other than FIRECalc. Oh, perhaps I ran I-ORP a few times, but that was to look at Roth conversion strategies.

I stopped having the apprehension of running out of money when I realized that the chance was strong that I would run out of time first, particularly as my WR was getting lower and lower, to around 1% or less now.

Haha, I can relate! I run Firecalc quite often, even though I know full well that it's going to give me the same results. I have always been good at repetitive behavior

It's still good, given that you expect the same result.

You know what they call when people do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

 

[srblanco7]

I'll admit to being a bit fanatical about tracking our portfolio and playing with a couple versions of a spreadsheet that model our withdrawal strategy for a planned early retirement in couple years. And, of course checking on various retirement simulators including Firecalc and Vanguard's monte carlo tool.

 

[Koolau]

I always advise newbies to use FIRECalc but I can't even recall the last time I ran FIRECalc. A few years into ER I realized it was "working" so I pretty much quit obsessing. I run a crude NW every year now and since it's still going up, I'm golden. Having said that, you could do worse than obsessing on FIRECalc. YMMV

 

[Major Tom]

I never ran any retirement calculator other than FIRECalc. Oh, perhaps I ran I-ORP a few times, but that was to look at Roth conversion strategies.

I stopped having the apprehension of running out of money when I realized that the chance was strong that I would run out of time first, particularly as my WR was getting lower and lower, to around 1% or less now.


It's still good, given that you expect the same result.

You know what they call when people do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

I'm pretty much the same. I very occasionally run other retirement calculators. I don't do it with any serious intent though, because I already know what I need to know, namely, that any WR under about 3% or so is sustainable, and the lower it gets, the more cavalier I can feel about market volatility In fact, as far as I'm concerned, from now on, the only retirement calculator I need is the info contained in the previous statement, which I will repeat, simply because I have a little too much time on my hands. The following is the Major Tom retirement calculator -

Any WR under about 3% or so is sustainable, and the lower it gets, the more cavalier I can feel about market volatility.

I don't think I'll ever get to a WR as low as yours, NW-Bound. I'm at 2.4% now. I've been as low as 1.9%, and will get there again - and perhaps a smidgin lower. I'm good with that.

Now where was I? Oh yes, gazing at the schematic of a little circuit I've been building, and drinking tea. Happy days!

 

[Whisper66]

Firecalc and I-ORP were the main tools I used to get comfortable with early retirement. I shared their results vs our spending patterns (collected in Moneydance) with my wife in a simple report which got her comfortable with early retirement too. I still run both tools each year, update that report and go over it with my wife. These periodic checkups gives us both confidence we don't need to worry about finances too much.

 

[karen1972]

LOL maybe since I came across your thread this morning after executing FireCalc and coming here to find the answer to a question.

I know I'm obsessed with Firecalc but I also know why. I retired 6 years ago with only 83% success rate at the lower end of my working career lifestyle. In the 6 years we had lifestyle creep back up as while I was ok with the lesser lifestyle, my long term BF was not as ok as he thought he'd be..to the point he kept working and we re-upsized the house. I hit a new milestone this morning so re-ran the numbers and now at 94.3% success of the larger lifestyle.

I try to limit myself to just times when things may have changed in the calculation, but even then I can find plenty.
- End of year re-cap
- Refinancing the house
- My LTBF contract renewed so I added 1 more year of side income
- We just hit a major milestone in invested assets
- My birthday is coming up so years to support will decrement 1

Pretty sure once we are at 100% (currently $141k away) I will stop being so obsessed so current retired but not confidently retired with 45 more years to go.

 

[NW-Bound]

Any WR under about 3% or so is sustainable, and the lower it gets, the more cavalier I can feel about market volatility.

I don't think I'll ever get to a WR as low as yours, NW-Bound. I'm at 2.4% now. I've been as low as 1.9%, and will get there again - and perhaps a smidgin lower. I'm good with that.

Now where was I? Oh yes, gazing at the schematic of a little circuit I've been building, and drinking tea. Happy days!

I am not cavalier about market volatility. I look at it as a chance to make money, even if I do not spend it. I take it as a challenge (and I do not play poker, or any card game).

 

[SecondCor521]

my long term BF

- My LTBF contract renewed so I added 1 more year of side income

Edited to remove some stuff.

I read the above line in a different way than you probably meant it.