Boldin Analysis

[Nastywarnob]

A few keys here (yes I am a Boldin fan). Your expense inputs are really critical here. You can flag detailed expense to what you MUST spend and what you would LIKE TO spend. Then in Boldin you can toggle between the two to allow you to see what levers you can pull in case things start going South.

Also, you can set the returns you expect by each account. If you lower those expected returns, you will get a more conservative answer.

Lastly, you can then run various scenarios in the Boldin Explorers section to see what things would look like if you have even poorer or better returns across al your accounts.

Bottom line, you need to ensure the inputs are accurate or the outputs won’t be.

 

[Tuirc]

A few keys here (yes I am a Boldin fan). Your expense inputs are really critical here. You can flag detailed expense to what you MUST spend and what you would LIKE TO spend. Then in Boldin you can toggle between the two to allow you to see what levers you can pull in case things start going South.

Also, you can set the returns you expect by each account. If you lower those expected returns, you will get a more conservative answer.

Lastly, you can then run various scenarios in the Boldin Explorers section to see what things would look like if you have even poorer or better returns across al your accounts.

Bottom line, you need to ensure the inputs are accurate or the outputs won’t be.

Thanks for your insights! I think I mentioned in my original post that my wife and I went on a very detailed spending/expense effort for about 3 weeks gathering all sources of expenditures and expenses for the last year. I had previously built a financial tracking spreadsheet and dashboard for this purpose, and we filled it out during this effort.

Previously, I had put placeholder expenses in Boldin, intending to complete this effort before actually trusting what Boldin had to say. Now having the complete information, we dug in and sat together identifying and adding expenses, future expenses, and then double checked that we'd captured and categorized everything appropriately.

Without getting into too much detail, Boldin tells me that our expenses only account for 2/3 of what we could be spending. Granted, I only included one medium expense vacation in the plan, but I view the vacations as completely optional. We'll do them as they are affordable to do. But that's the only thing I skimped on.

The question on the "Like to Spend" column I have is, in my thinking (not the way I filled it out, but just my thinking), in some cases, I'd like to spend less on a certain item/category. I guess Boldin's thinking is, you may want to, but you haven't done it yet so you can't reduce that category. Even with the "Like to" and a "Pessimistic" return, the result is still good because I'm so much under. The only thing that has any impact is sequence of return risks actually happen in the first 3 years. That results in a material impact to the amount gained, but not whether retirement is advisable.

I chose to leave my returns at Boldin defaults. My 10-year averages are much higher than Boldin's defaults, so I consider that a conservative estimate.

 

[engineernerd]

If your total annual expected expenses are less than 4% of your portfolio (and your investments aren't too unconventional), that is a well-accepted "rule of thumb" that you can likely support a 30-year comfortable retirement.

But to get a better and more detailed picture, I'm a huge fan of the "historical" retirement calculators like FIRECalc and FI Calc, that tell you how you would have done if you'd retired in any given year in the past (up to n years back, of course, where n = length of proposed retirement).

It sounds like you may have discovered all the FIRECalc tabs this second time around, so you know that you can input varying spending and income flows over the course of your retirement (e.g. higher spending while still making mortgage payments and/or buying overpriced ACA health insurance, then lower), and that there are several illuminating options in the "Investigate" tab.

Be aware that spending level has to include what you expect to spend on taxes each year during retirement.

Also FIRECalc doesn't include any data about investments like rental real estate, so if you have a lot of that you have to guess at how to model it.

 

[Tuirc]

If your total annual expected expenses are less than 4% of your portfolio (and your investments aren't too unconventional), that is a well-accepted "rule of thumb" that you can likely support a 30-year comfortable retirement.

But to get a better and more detailed picture, I'm a huge fan of the "historical" retirement calculators like FIRECalc and FI Calc, that tell you how you would have done if you'd retired in any given year in the past (up to n years back, of course, where n = length of proposed retirement).

It sounds like you may have discovered all the FIRECalc tabs this second time around, so you know that you can input varying spending and income flows over the course of your retirement (e.g. higher spending while still making mortgage payments and/or buying overpriced ACA health insurance, then lower), and that there are several illuminating options in the "Investigate" tab.

Be aware that spending level has to include what you expect to spend on taxes each year during retirement.

Also FIRECalc doesn't include any data about investments like rental real estate, so if you have a lot of that you have to guess at how to model it.

Thanks! It's like you're a mind reader; I was just setting up a worksheet in my retirement workbook for calculating taxes and doing quarterly estimates. I do need to go back and see if taxes were accounted for in the calculations, good point! Investments are Boglehead traditional. No real estate investments to worry about.

 

[Nastywarnob]

+1 and Firecalc and any other calculator. I ran my numbers on that and others to validate they all largely tied out. No sense in jumping into only 1 when you can play the field for free.

Also, the other critical component with Boldin is to set up your expected returns properly. It sounds like you’re doing all the right things..,,there is no shortcut and the hardest part is to properly identify the expenses side of the equation.

 

[JustOneMoreYear]

Bottom line, you need to ensure the inputs are accurate or the outputs won’t be.

Expenses control your chance of success more than any other single factor. A $1000 per month change in expenses either way can make or break your plan, usually.

Retirement Figures has historical and Monte Carlo simulations and I find it interesting that they usually are in pretty close alignment

 

[HI Bill]

Congrats! Now that we know you are ‘safe’ to ER, I’d suggest checking out the Bogleheads Variable Percentage Withdrawal planner https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Variable_percentage_withdrawal. Its aim is to maximize spending. I find this especially attractive from the ER date for the duration of the ‘go go’ years when you have better health and more abilities to travel. Also, check out the ‘Blow that Dough’ thread here to get some encouragement to spend more and ideas if you need some.

 

[HI Bill]

Congrats! Now that we know you are ‘safe’ to ER, I’d suggest checking out the Bogleheads Variable Percentage Withdrawal planner https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Variable_percentage_withdrawal Its aim is to maximize spending. I find this especially attractive from the ER date for the duration of the ‘go go’ years when you have better health and more abilities to travel. Also, check out the ‘Blow that Dough’ thread here to get some encouragement to spend more and ideas if you need some.