Retirement Income Optimization software

[WestwardBound]

I'm interested in finding a good income optimization package. I retired in late 2019 and my original plan to tap various asset sources and my pension made a lot of sense in 2019 and 2020. Also, I started doing Roth conversions in 2021 and my best window for significant conversions is 2022-2024. Right or wrong, my focus was on the viability of retirement and not as much on income optimization.

With increased inflation and the current significant down market, I want to look at various options not considered before such as taking pension early, options for SS, additional Roth conversions, etc.

I'm looking for feedback on these and suggestions for others I should look at.

Pralana Gold
Maxfi
Income Strategy
New Retirement

Thank you.

 

[target2019]

We use Flexible Retirement Planner.

I've been doing taxes for many years, and tracking expenses. At this time everything is pretty much set, and I have a good picture of income and expenses. I made a flow chart that shows accounts in the center, with income on the left and expenses on the right. Just last night I updated it for any changes in closed accounts, bill changes, etc. the past year. I look at this a few times each year, and also have a table for a simple ten year plan.

We're optimized because what flows in to various cash account (buckets) is sufficient to pay close to 100% of expected bills. But I understand your situation is different.

Roth conversions are modeled in FRP. There are a few very good threads in this forum about Roth conversions.

 

[zekeboz]

We use Flexible Retirement Planner.

Same here.

Love the adjustments that one can make when modeling a scenario. Seems to not get the same level of interest as other programs, not sure why but I really like the ability to setup changes over time periods for inflation or portfolio returns. ex. current inflation scenario where you can set the inflation number to be 6% for 3 years then ratch it back down to the historic level of 2.5 / 3% for the next 10 years, etc..

 

[G-Man]

We use Flexible Retirement Planner.

I've been doing taxes for many years, and tracking expenses. At this time everything is pretty much set, and I have a good picture of income and expenses. I made a flow chart that shows accounts in the center, with income on the left and expenses on the right. Just last night I updated it for any changes in closed accounts, bill changes, etc. the past year. I look at this a few times each year, and also have a table for a simple ten year plan.

We're optimized because what flows in to various cash account (buckets) is sufficient to pay close to 100% of expected bills. But I understand your situation is different.

Roth conversions are modeled in FRP. There are a few very good threads in this forum about Roth conversions.

Can you share your workflow?

 

[Midpack]

Income Strategy was invaluable to me, I wrote extensively about it here in 2019. It takes some effort to understand how it works, it’s by no means for a complete novice who just wants to plug and chug. I subscribed for one month back in 2019, so $20, and while it took about two weeks to really understand and appreciate the results, it gave me everything I’d ever wanted for a retirement spending-tax-withdrawal-Roth conversion plan. I’ve been following that plan since Fall 2019, which is projected to save us over $400K in federal and state taxes over our lifetimes, though that doesn’t all flow directly into residual net worth.

However just recently I subscribed again and it’s a little more of a black box now. The interface is prettier but the results don’t present quite as much detail now. I guess customers just wanted answers without all the detail - the opposite of what I needed to see to convince myself to commit to a bold plan after years of sitting on the fence.

I almost subscribed to Pralana Gold, but it wouldn’t have done more than Income Strategy 2019.

You might like these:

https://youtu.be/Dpn2VWY0bvk

https://youtu.be/t7cT3daYI7I

 

[ImThinkin2019]

Our need was to optimize Roth conversions and minimize taxes.

We chose Pralana Gold because it allowed us to test various Roth conversions and other income events year by year. The values for each year can be adjusted or one value can be specified for a range of years.

Once the data is in, three scenarios can be easily compared automatically.

There is also a sensitivity analysis tool to help you see the effect of changes in one variable on the plan outcome.

It is a very powerful tool. We stopped looking once we found this.

 

[target2019]

Can you share your workflow?

Could you give me an example of what you mean by workflow?

 

[G-Man]

Could you give me an example of what you mean by workflow?

Sorry.. Your flow chart.

 

[target2019]

Sorry.. Your flow chart.

Ok, here is a picture of it.

 

[G-Man]

Ok, here is a picture of it.

Did you create this in Visio or Excel?

 

[Scuba]

Our need was to optimize Roth conversions and minimize taxes.

We chose Pralana Gold because it allowed us to test various Roth conversions and other income events year by year. The values for each year can be adjusted or one value can be specified for a range of years.

Once the data is in, three scenarios can be easily compared automatically.

There is also a sensitivity analysis tool to help you see the effect of changes in one variable on the plan outcome.

It is a very powerful tool. We stopped looking once we found this.

Does this tool also work well to analyze different scenarios of when to start pension and SS income streams with the goal of maximizing after tax cash inflows?

 

[target2019]

Did you create this in Visio or Excel?

It's called draw.io, and I use it with google drive (loads in browser). You can also save locall It's also available as a standalone app.