FIRECalc continuity

[glv]

I'm getting close to retirement, and FIRECalc is really helping me plan. However, I'm wondering how long it is likely to be available. As far as I can tell it's operated and maintained by a single individual, and while the people who participate in this forum know a lot about it, I haven't seen any discussion of a successor to Dory or a continuity plan. Other helpful sites, including the Optimal Retirement Planner, have vanished, and I hope the same doesn't happen to FIRECalc.

Can anyone here shed any light on this?

 

[glv]

FICalc.

I've also used FICalc, and while there are some things about it I like better, there are also things I prefer about FIRECalc. This isn't an answer to my question.

 

[COcheesehead]

I've also used FICalc, and while there are some things about it I like better, there are also things I prefer about FIRECalc. This isn't an answer to my question.

Great, I deleted it then

 

[RetiredHappy]

Not an answer for you but I much prefer Fidelity Retirement Planning over FIRECalc. FRP is alot more granular and it walks you through putting in all the expenses and income sources.

 

[Dtail]

I use both Firecalc and Fidelity with one being an historical sequencing and the other using Monte Carlo simulations.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

I use both Firecalc and Fidelity with one being an historical sequencing and the other using Monte Carlo simulations.

Me too. I think of fidelity as more a retirement planner while firecalc is an amazingly cool, super useful, blunt edged instrument. Both have their uses.

 

[engineernerd]

Great, I deleted it then

Thanks for the link! (FI Calc)

FI Calc seems to share the same history-based approach as FIRECalc, which is great. I like FIRECalc better (thanks, Dory!) but FI Calc would be worth using if FIRECalc does go away first.

 

[engineernerd]

I'm getting close to retirement, and FIRECalc is really helping me plan. However, I'm wondering how long it is likely to be available. As far as I can tell it's operated and maintained by a single individual, and while the people who participate in this forum know a lot about it, I haven't seen any discussion of a successor to Dory or a continuity plan. Other helpful sites, including the Optimal Retirement Planner, have vanished, and I hope the same doesn't happen to FIRECalc.

Can anyone here shed any light on this?

I care about this too, but would hate to put any pressure on Dory to do anything he doesn't want to do.

 

[Rianne]

Thanks for the link! (FI Calc)

FI Calc seems to share the same history-based approach as FIRECalc, which is great. I like FIRECalc better (thanks, Dory!) but FI Calc would be worth using if FIRECalc does go away first.

I like FI Calc. The historical look back is interesting. You might have a frown during a certain period, say 1973-2002. Because it shows the history of the economy, you can see what the bad times were. And you can change your withdrawal strategy and see how that plays it during certain time periods. Firecalc is a good summary but I can't understand the jiggly lines. FI calc explains them.

 

[engineernerd]

I like FI Calc. The historical look back is interesting. You might have a frown during a certain period, say 1973-2002. Because it shows the history of the economy, you can see what the bad times were. And you can change your withdrawal strategy and see how that plays it during certain time periods. Firecalc is a good summary but I can't understand the jiggly lines. FI calc explains them.

...and I noticed FI Calc lets you investigate different rebalancing frequencies, including not rebalancing at all.

 

[Sunset]

If it's run and everything looks really good, why worry it won't be around in 10 years, would you really Un-retire at that point ?

 

[ERD50]

I'm getting close to retirement, and FIRECalc is really helping me plan. However, I'm wondering how long it is likely to be available. As far as I can tell it's operated and maintained by a single individual, ....

Can anyone here shed any light on this?

See this old thread:

FIRECalc Development

I wanted to let you all know we are working on FIRECalc. There have been various feature requests and questions about how certain cash flow streams are handled. We plan to address those ASAP. It's been a while since we adopted the site from Dory36. In that time I have hired various...

www.early-retirement.org

Andy, the current owner of the site looked into updating the code back in 2011, but it seems he decided against it.

I also like FICalc.app , as you can easily look into a single year.

 

[Time2]

I care about this too, but would hate to put any pressure on Dory to do anything he doesn't want to do.

I give Dory great big kudos for his time and expertise developing the program. It gave me the confidence to retire, I may have worked an additional 6 years if not for the knowledge I gained from using FireCalc. I would hope Dory would like to see it continue to help people in he future make their decision. I don't know how that would be done as there is the updating, adding the new data from the previous year, so someone needs to continue that. I guess there is a bug or two known, but I have not encountered them. I'd like to see it continue for my kids.

 

[MichaelB]

FIRECalc is an app with stable code so it can continue indefinitely.

It does rely on historical data, so Dory stops by to update every year or so. Without the data update it is still useful and viable, and with or without updated data, the conclusions would not be distinguishable.

 

[glv]

See this old thread:

Thank you, that's helpful!

 

[glv]

If it's run and everything looks really good, why worry it won't be around in 10 years, would you really Un-retire at that point ?

No, I wouldn't unretire. But as Time2 said, I would love for the site to be available for others to benefit from in the future. Plus, I think Tom Canfield's strategy in the Nest Egg Care book makes a ton of sense: I want to recalculate periodically to make sure I'm not being too liberal in my spending, or — almost as bad — being too conservative and not enjoying or giving away my wealth as much as I could.