Anyone Subscribe to Boldin/New Retirement Financial Planning Software?

Midpack

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From reviews I've seen it's one of the better software packages for DIY planners. It's only $120/year and there's evidently a 14 day free trial, though I'm not inclined to take advantage of that. I'm mostly interested in optimizing taxes, Roth conversions, avoiding IRMAA, Social Security DW, optimizing for heirs, and it appears more adept than I am with my homegrown spreadsheets. If nothing else, a second opinion before it's too late for me in 3 years.

I've looked at Pralana and it appears just as capable, but less user friendly - more spreadsheet oriented? Right Capital appears to be better than Boldin, but you have to work through a professional advisor to get access, and that would be WAY more than $120/year.

Just wondered if anyone here has first hand experience, and ran into shortcomings?
 
I paid for a 1 year subscription and put together some different Roth conversion approaches and see tax impact as well as IRMMA impact. It was great to confirm my spreadsheets and then some. Well worth it. I plan to not renew for a couple of years until I get off of ACA with CSRs then sign back up once on Medicare. I prefer it much more than going to a CFP and having them create a plan as it is much more interactive with Boldin.
 
I paid for a 1 year subscription and put together some different Roth conversion approaches and see tax impact as well as IRMMA impact. It was great to confirm my spreadsheets and then some. Well worth it. I plan to not renew for a couple of years until I get off of ACA with CSRs then sign back up once on Medicare. I prefer it much more than going to a CFP and having them create a plan as it is much more interactive with Boldin.

I'm in the same boat. My focus is on maximizing the ACA subsidies until I get on Medicare later this year. I plan to start using Boldin (for the first time) in 2026.
 
We have had a subscription since last year and really like it. I think its a pretty good software program with good work flow, lots of data inputs and flexibility with nice charts but as with all things retirement hard to actually predict the future. Still learning things about it and plan to start diving deeper into it soon. Here are a couple of videos below I recently watched on it.

This video is good because it also explains pricing options and additional services available.
🌟Key Takeaways:-Scenario Analysis: Test various financial scenarios to optimize your retirement plan.-Real-Time Net Worth Tracking: Monitor your net worth and stay on track with your goals.-Comprehensive Resources: Access to coaching, classes, and groups for in-depth learning.-Visualizations and Analytics: Utilize tools like Monte Carlo analysis and asset allocation.-Personalized Robo-Advising: Get tailored advice and recommendations.-Various Calculators: Use tools like the Roth Conversion Calculator and Lifetime Annuity Calculator.-Excellent Customer Support: Benefit from email support, live chat, and weekly video sessions.

Written review here by 2nd video guy below:

This is a Boldin review and tutorial for new or existing users looking to build or refine their DIY retirement plans (NewRetirement rebranded to Boldin in September 2024).
Time Stamps0:00 Intro1:25 Screenshare1:49 Table of Contents2:00 Overview3:27 My Plan Summary3:45 Connections4:44 Accounts and Assets6:00 Home and Real Estate6:45 Debts7:10 Income10:16 Expenses and Healthcare13:15 Money Flows15:40 Estate Planning16:10 Profile and Goals17:49 Rate Assumptions18:32 Coach/Suggestions18:58 Strengthen Your Plan19:39 Insights/Visualizations28:20 Retirement Withdrawals28:55 Explorers30:04 Social Security30:26 Roth Conversion31:00 Download/Print31:56 Free Trial32:09 Pricing33:18 No More Spreadsheets33:54 Outro
 
I've been using all three of the software packages you mentioned. I'm kind of a retirement calculator junkie and have been since I started on my FIRE journey some 15 years ago. Over the years I've been a paid subscriber to many of the calculators including, ESPlanner, OnTrajectory, Pralana Gold, New Retirement (Boldin), and Right Capital. Not to mention all the free ones like Firecalc, iORP, etc, etc.

For what you are looking for, by far the best IMHO is Pralana Gold. Yes, it does have the longest learning curve, but once understood and mastered, it is the most robust calculator for taxes, Roth Conversions, IRMAA, Monte Carlo & Historical success rates, etc. The online version is a major upgrade from the excel file that I've used since 2021 and is a definite step up to the user interface.

I've tried several free trials of New Retirement/Boldin and never liked it enough to put money on it. It is getting a lot of push from influencers on YT, but that's pretty much a red flag for me. YMMV.
 
I think Mr. Berger didn't really dig deeply into the capability of the products. For comprehensiveness and power, Pralana blows Boldin out of the water.

If you hold your bonds in your IRA and stocks in taxable & Roth, Pralana has the ability to hold your overall portfolio asset allocation constant throughout life, which is really rare in the world of consumer tools (the bogleheads' Retiree Portfolio Model is the only other tool I'm aware of that can do it but that program is limited in many other ways).

With other tools (I believe including Boldin), you are stuck using the same asset allocation in all accounts. That's not going to give you good answers for Roth Conversions. If you enter different allocations (or different rates of return) for different accounts, you can get pathologically high answers for Roth Conversions, where the programs will incorrectly find value in conversions by taking money out of the "low-returning" IRA and putting it in the "high-returning" Roth. But of course, the investments don't change their return by moving from one account to the other, the program has just switched you to more stocks.

The Pralana tax package is really good, another rare feature it has is to estimate capital gains taxes when you sell assets to live on. Those can act as a brake on Roth Conversions as they are new lifetime taxes. Currently Pralana puts capital gains taxes on asset sales in the following year, they are supposed to roll out an iterative calculation soon that will put those in the current year where they belong.

Pralana also has both historical and Monte Carlo analysis tools. I like historical so I can see how my rate of return assumptions stack up vs. historical results. A cool feature is you can select any given starting year and the program will show you all its normal output, year by year on how your plan would have fared. I use that for Roth Conversions to make sure that my Roth Conversion plan isn't too painful in a historically bad sequence, like starting in 1965 (Roth Conversions can hurt you if returns are worse than you anticipated).

Some folks are very into withdrawal strategies, Pralana has eight types from just listing your expenses to Consumption smoothing (like the old I-ORP), to Amortization to Guyton-Klinger. Each can be run with historical and Monte Carlo.

Some want to know the projected earliest retirement date and Pralana has an Optimizer for that. It has an Optimizer for picking the order of which account to withdraw from first - it will break your retirement into a couple of time periods and test 625 options to simultaneously optimize account order (unlike the old i-ORP, it cannot make automatic suggestions about taking a little from this account and a little from that account in the same year though).

It is very customizable, so I can, say, manually test withdrawing some extra from my inherited IRA or HSA in a year where I need cash vs. letting the program sell assets. Or in a year where I've told it there are Long Term Care costs, I can test making extra withdrawals from my IRA to fully use up the medical deductions.
 
I’ve used Pralana Gold and Boldin. They both have their benefits, but I’m probably not going to renew either anymore. I’ve determined what I need to do with Roth conversions and the effects on IRMAA. I don’t foresee any significant changes in tax laws at this point. I am using Snowball Analytics to help predict and keep track of our dividends and profitability.
 
Probably too late for me now - especially in terms of Roth vs IRMAA.
 
I never even knew such software existed. I'm struggling to figure out why I'd need it.

I watch my finances. I hang out in this forum, and occasionally glance at the financial news. I have on-line tools for investments. I'll create spreadsheets or even just do some paper-and-pencil calculations when needed. What am I missing?
 
I used Pralana Gold and liked it a lot, although it some of the first-year calculations were difficult to understand. Exchme has a good description, above. I am now past Roth conversions and don't really need Pralana anymore.
 
I tried Pralana back when it was still in spreadsheet form, before it moved online. I'm a spreadsheet junkie but it's always difficult to pick up somebody else's spreadsheet (or code of any kind) and use it. Lots of reviews of the new online version of Pralana over on bogleheads: Pralana Online Released - Impressions - Bogleheads.org

I have a friend who uses MaxiFI Planner and they recently added a Roth conversion optimizer, so he gave me a demo of its capabilities and I've watched a video regarding how theirs works.

At the end of the day, all of these tools have limitations. They come with certain assumptions that the authors made when designing their toolset. And for many people, a somewhat expanded cookie cutter approach might be just fine. My friend who chose MaxiFI Planner ultimately did so because its interface is very easy to use and he's concerned about his spouse being able to pick up their financial life should he depart first. It's a valid reason.

As I noted, I'm a spreadsheet junkie and I prefer to have full control over everything. I have several of them that I use for different parts of our financial life.
- A withdrawal calculator. I amortize for withdrawals and make withdrawals quarterly. I have the one that I use today and there's a simplified version for my wife should I depart first or otherwise become incapacitated. (She was a CS major and can run rings around me in Excel anyway, so I'm not too worried about her ability to use this)
- A custom Roth conversion optimizer that I use for longer term planning. I found that most of the canned tools I looked at came with a bunch of assumptions that might not result in the best potential final result, so I wanted the ability to test all of that out with whatever constraints I personally wanted.
- Portfolio Tracker
- I'm currently making quarterly tax payments using the annualization method, so I have a spreadsheet for that as well. Someday I'll probably move to using one of the safe harbors, but not just yet. Once you have a spreadsheet for this, and some decent tax software (here I use a canned spreadsheet from elsewhere) it's not really all that difficult to maintain.

Cheers.
 
I never even knew such software existed. I'm struggling to figure out why I'd need it.

I watch my finances. I hang out in this forum, and occasionally glance at the financial news. I have on-line tools for investments. I'll create spreadsheets or even just do some paper-and-pencil calculations when needed. What am I missing?
If you're happy with what you're currently doing and it suits you, you're not missing anything.

Others have their own goals which might have enough complexity involved that they need something with more horsepower to support it - or at least explore the possibilities. "Personal Finance is Personal".

Cheers.
 
I have used the free version for over 5 years and find it interesting, I paid for the upgrade version but canceled after 10 days as I thought it was not a major upgrade. It may be better now and I may try to upgrade again.
 
It requires you give log-in to your brokerage accounts, right? I would not be comfortable doing that.
 
It requires you give log-in to your brokerage accounts, right? I would not be comfortable doing that.
Only if you want real time updates I believe. We do not allowitto access our accounts and occasionally manually update.
 
It requires you give log-in to your brokerage accounts, right? I would not be comfortable doing that.
Not required. An option that most reviewers don’t use.
 
I might take a look. Can't think I would pay for it.
 
So I did a 14 day free trial subscription to Boldin/New Retirement, and I was pleasantly surprised. I tried it several years ago as New Retirement and it had some obvious shortcomings - it has improved considerably since then, far more comprehensive. It's very user friendly and easy to understand. I can see how it would be very useful to novices who want to get a handle on their financial plans.

However, my financial die is already cast for the most part, so I don't have a need to subscribe to Boldin. I easily generated 5 plans, baseline, Roth to IRMAAx1, Roth to 22%, Roth to Max Estate, and no Roth (retroactive), and downloaded to pdfs, and submitted my cancel notice today. The results closely mirrored what my 2019/2022 Income Strategy reports told me, and matched my own DIY spreadsheets - more accurate near term than Boldin or Pralana, they may be better at long term, but that's not very important for us.

I also tried Pralana Online before Boldin, and found it much less user friendly. Granted I only gave it a few days but there were a few attributes I was never going to accept. I don't doubt that it's more capable based on members here who have used it for a long time.

FWIW
 
New Retirement/Boldin user since they started, and will probably be keeping it.

I've tried plenty of other paid planners, and some gave me useful information Boldin couldn't, e.g. when to annuitize based on my specific mix of investments & asset allocation (MaxiFiPlanner: not until around age 80)

Just recently added Right Capital for the one-time fee.

Never could get into the complexities of (spreadsheet) Pralana Gold...might try the newer, online version.
 
New Retirement/Boldin user since they started, and will probably be keeping it.

I've tried plenty of other paid planners, and some gave me useful information Boldin couldn't, e.g. when to annuitize based on my specific mix of investments & asset allocation (MaxiFiPlanner: not until around age 80)

Just recently added Right Capital for the one-time fee.

Never could get into the complexities of (spreadsheet) Pralana Gold...might try the newer, online version.
I'm using RightCapital as well. What is your opinion on RightCapital?

Are you retired yet? If yes, is the results from RightCapital close to reality? Because I'm using RightCapital but haven't retired yet (will in April 2025).
 
I'm using RightCapital as well. What is your opinion on RightCapital?

Are you retired yet? If yes, is the results from RightCapital close to reality? Because I'm using RightCapital but haven't retired yet (will in April 2025).

I like it more as I use it more...absolutely worth the one-time fee.

Very useful for tax planning, e.g. modeling Roth conversions, see this video

Like how it generates a projected 1040 for every year.
 
I like it more as I use it more...absolutely worth the one-time fee.

Very useful for tax planning, e.g. modeling Roth conversions, see this video

Like how it generates a projected 1040 for every year.
It's my favorite retirement planning software so far. The cashflow module is my favorite. It is a very powerful retirement planning tool. The only drawback is that many of the assumptions are configured by the advisor and can't be changed by the end user.

Other than that, I love the user interface, the charts and graphs, and many of the other modules like you mentioned above (tax planning module, investment module, debt module, etc.). I'm glad that all of these modules have been enabled by the advisor.

I agree that it is worth the one-time lifetime fee.
 
It's my favorite retirement planning software so far. The cashflow module is my favorite. It is a very powerful retirement planning tool. The only drawback is that many of the assumptions are configured by the advisor and can't be changed by the end user.

Other than that, I love the user interface, the charts and graphs, and many of the other modules like you mentioned above (tax planning module, investment module, debt module, etc.). I'm glad that all of these modules have been enabled by the advisor.

I agree that it is worth the one-time lifetime fee.
I'm looking into this and don't see an option for the one-time lifetime fee, it looks like only a monthly subscription. What am I missing? Thanks!
 
I'm looking into this and don't see an option for the one-time lifetime fee, it looks like only a monthly subscription. What am I missing? Thanks!

See this post...

 
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