But I put my current 2017 portfolio balance but plan for retirement in the future (aka 2023) --
1. how does it calculate my portfolio growth between now and then?
2. Is "additional income" also supposed to include "current working income"?
1. cFIREsim does that for you automatically
2. yes - but cFIREsim will assume your current spending level is the same as your FIRE spending level. So if you spend more now you can add the extra $$ as addition spending between now and the FIRE date.
No, your answer to #2 is not correct. cFiresim doesn't start deducting from your stash until you reach your retirement year. So it's not spending anything until you reach that date (basically it's assuming that you're living off of your work income until retirement). You don't have to put in your current spending prior to retirement. All you have to do is account for any SAVINGS that you add to your stash prior to your retirement year. You do this in the "other income" section. So if you're saving $40k/yr while you're still working, you'd put in a $40k recurring other income, starting in the current year and ending in the last year before your retirement year. So prior to your retirement year, it's growing your stash by savings + investment return.
Well, I suppose you could do it the way you suggest, but it seems unnecessarily complicated to me. You'd have to enter your total current spending as extra spending, then enter your full salary as other income, both starting in the current year and ending in the year before retirement. To me it's much simpler to just enter expected net savings as other income.
