Author Topic: Rich, Broke or Dead: Visualizing probabilities of outcomes in early retirement  (Read 69379 times)

EnjoyIt

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Very cool update. Thank you.

Western_sean

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Cool update - might be interesting to add a reduced mortality (positive lifestyle effect?) option.  The impact of something like a 20% reduction in mortality v population average might be worth considering based on data from https://actuaries.asn.au/Library/Opinion/2018/AIExploringRetireeMortalityFINAL.pdf.

The thing I particularly like about this tool is the visual impact of the size of the wedges - I guess I just want to be able to tweak the death one in the same way as the others. I suspect that probably says more about my mindset than the application.....




Gyosho

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I'd like the option to add more fields for Extra Income (right now there is only 1) - some of us have more than 1 source of extra income expected at different times in our life.

I'd also like an option to input Decreased Spending - for example, paying off your mortgage.

CCCA

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Thanks to everyone for posting positive feedback on the model addition and analysis.  I'm super happy that people are finding it useful.


I'd like the option to add more fields for Extra Income (right now there is only 1) - some of us have more than 1 source of extra income expected at different times in our life.

I'd also like an option to input Decreased Spending - for example, paying off your mortgage.


You can already add more income streams.  Enter multiple values separated by semicolons: e.g. 50000;15000;5000 in the extra income box and then make sure you add 3 start ages and 3 end ages (also separated by semicolons) in the appropriate boxes

[/size]
Cool update - might be interesting to add a reduced mortality (positive lifestyle effect?) option.  The impact of something like a 20% reduction in mortality v population average might be worth considering based on data from https://actuaries.asn.au/Library/Opinion/2018/AIExploringRetireeMortalityFINAL.pdf.

The thing I particularly like about this tool is the visual impact of the size of the wedges - I guess I just want to be able to tweak the death one in the same way as the others. I suspect that probably says more about my mindset than the application.....



I will take a look at the pdf you linked to and see if it's possible/makes sense to add it in. I know that was a big discussion point earlier in this thread.

TexasRunner

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Great Resource!!!!

One thing that I like though, is the flexibility you have in a mere 20% spending fluctuation.  I've never been able to find a great mathematical resource that shows how powerful it is to just be able to 'turn down' the spending (or alternatively slightly increase earnings to the tune of 20% annual spending).  Having flexibility (especially if you have a very early crash, within about 5 years or so after FIRE) adds a MASSIVE safety buffer into FIRE.

This thing is pretty cool.  Nice work.

TomTX

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I just added the ability for a very simplistic spending reduction in the model.  You specify a % reduction in your inflation adjusted spending (e.g. 5%) and if your portfolio is below the inflation-adjusted starting value, then your spending will be reduced by this much, otherwise it will be what you stated. 

This level of flexibility significantly decreases the probability of failure.  Between 0% spending flexibility and 20% spending flexibility, the change of failure drops from 18% over 50years to 0% over 50 years.

GREAT addition!

And if you rejigger to 100% stocks and a 0.1% for investment fees (very doable), the flexibility needed for 0% failure rate drops to 15% on the 50 year horizon.

Basically if you can trim (or replace) $6k from your $40k spending in "down" years, the prediction is no failure.

2Birds1Stone

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That is one of my most sought after features (currently missing) from the likes of FIRECALC and cFIREsim.

Thank you!

EnjoyIt

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That is one of my most sought after features (currently missing) from the likes of FIRECALC and cFIREsim.

Thank you!

If I remember correctly EarlyRetirementNow has a really nice article on this in his early retirement series.  The whole series is an excellent read if you have the time.

CCCA

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It's always nice to hear feedback that this is a useful feature. 


One issue I had with the Early Retirement Now series (which I'll admit, i've only read a few of and it was awhile ago, so I should probably re-read it) is how he focuses on the one or two worst scenarios for FIRE and when a plan doesn't work with those scenarios, he concludes it is not a good plan.  It seems to be an exceptionally conservative way to plan for the future.


TomTX

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It's a fabulous visualizer.

EnjoyIt

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It's always nice to hear feedback that this is a useful feature. 


One issue I had with the Early Retirement Now series (which I'll admit, i've only read a few of and it was awhile ago, so I should probably re-read it) is how he focuses on the one or two worst scenarios for FIRE and when a plan doesn't work with those scenarios, he concludes it is not a good plan.  It seems to be an exceptionally conservative way to plan for the future.

Indeed, it is work like his that gets people to not realize that all this historical data shows 4% as a SAFE withdrawal rate and not an average rate of withdrawal.  They then start thinking the only way to be safe is to go lower and all of a sudden you start having discussion of 2.5% withdrawal rates which are ludicrous in my mind.

CCCA

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It's always nice to hear feedback that this is a useful feature. 


One issue I had with the Early Retirement Now series (which I'll admit, i've only read a few of and it was awhile ago, so I should probably re-read it) is how he focuses on the one or two worst scenarios for FIRE and when a plan doesn't work with those scenarios, he concludes it is not a good plan.  It seems to be an exceptionally conservative way to plan for the future.

Indeed, it is work like his that gets people to not realize that all this historical data shows 4% as a SAFE withdrawal rate and not an average rate of withdrawal.  They then start thinking the only way to be safe is to go lower and all of a sudden you start having discussion of 2.5% withdrawal rates which are ludicrous in my mind.
Good I’m glad I’m not the only one. But I will take a look again anyways.

SugarMountain

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One thing I'd like to see, and maybe it's requested above, I haven't read the whole thread, is to have the ability to have two people in the model and have it show the probability for one or both being dead.  I mean, the odds of my making it to 95 are pretty slim, but the odds of both my wife and I making it that far are really long (although one set of my grandparents did it).  I suspect the visual would get pretty murky, but it would be interesting to see.

Mgmny

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One thing I'd like to see, and maybe it's requested above, I haven't read the whole thread, is to have the ability to have two people in the model and have it show the probability for one or both being dead.  I mean, the odds of my making it to 95 are pretty slim, but the odds of both my wife and I making it that far are really long (although one set of my grandparents did it).  I suspect the visual would get pretty murky, but it would be interesting to see.

Not built into the calculator on this thread, but this should help you do some rough calculations based on you and your spouse's age.

https://www.finder.com/life-insurance/odds-of-dying

RetirementInvestingToday

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Indeed, it is work like his that gets people to not realize that all this historical data shows 4% as a SAFE withdrawal rate and not an average rate of withdrawal.  They then start thinking the only way to be safe is to go lower and all of a sudden you start having discussion of 2.5% withdrawal rates which are ludicrous in my mind.

Hey, easy does it, that's the SWR I selected as a non-US based 46 year old FIRE'ee.  :-)  It was the lower of that or 85% of dividends received + 3 years spending in cash.  Psychology is a wonderful thing and I know I'd be incapable of selling down wealth to eat.

EnjoyIt

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Indeed, it is work like his that gets people to not realize that all this historical data shows 4% as a SAFE withdrawal rate and not an average rate of withdrawal.  They then start thinking the only way to be safe is to go lower and all of a sudden you start having discussion of 2.5% withdrawal rates which are ludicrous in my mind.

Hey, easy does it, that's the SWR I selected as a non-US based 46 year old FIRE'ee.  :-)  It was the lower of that or 85% of dividends received + 3 years spending in cash.  Psychology is a wonderful thing and I know I'd be incapable of selling down wealth to eat.

I’m not sure how much seriousness you have in that statement. But I think you need to understand how dividends work since taking the dividend devalues the company by the amount of the dividend. If you use that dividend to eat instead of reinvest, then you are in fact selling down wealth to eat. This is a fact and not really subject to argument.  But, we hope that investment growth is higher than that dividend and other withdrawals and therefor we do not deplete our wealth in the process. Expected returns are definitely subject to debate as seen on every finance forum in existence.

Those who subscribe to the 4% theory believe that future returns will be no worse than the very worst of history. If we are right then our wealth will grow over the decades. If we are wrong we will have to make a few changes to make things work. We understand that it is impossible to eliminate all risk and have decided that working longer to decrease that risk a tiny fraction is not worth our very limited time we have left on this Earth.

Edit: I just realized you are non-US based. I have no clue what historical returns and SWR you have investing in your country therefor my comments above are geared towards US investors.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2019, 03:19:54 PM by EnjoyIt »

RetirementInvestingToday

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I’m not sure how much seriousness you have in that statement. But I think you need to understand how dividends work since taking the dividend devalues the company by the amount of the dividend. If you use that dividend to eat instead of reinvest, then you are in fact selling down wealth to eat. This is a fact and not really subject to argument.  But, we hope that investment growth is higher than that dividend and other withdrawals and therefor we do not deplete our wealth in the process. Expected returns are definitely subject to debate as seen on every finance forum in existence.

Those who subscribe to the 4% theory believe that future returns will be no worse than the very worst of history. If we are right then our wealth will grow over the decades. If we are wrong we will have to make a few changes to make things work. We understand that it is impossible to eliminate all risk and have decided that working longer to decrease that risk a tiny fraction is not worth our very limited time we have left on this Earth.

Edit: I just realized you are non-US based. I have no clue what historical returns and SWR you have investing in your country therefor my comments above are geared towards US investors.

Yes, I do understand how dividends work and what companies do with those retained earnings if they don't give them back to the shareholders - some create value and some waste it.  That's all quantitative where I understand what matters is total return at the end of the day.  I'm more talking qualitative/psychological.  What's easier to do when the market has fallen by 50%.  Sell some of those equities/bonds to eat or withdraw the dividends that have accrued in the account plus possibly some of the 3 year cash buffer (dividends historically seem to fall less than the asset itself).  Of course we're all wired differently, including our risk profiles, so I expect some would have no issue with the former.  I accepted I had to work longer but now looking back in FIRE I'm glad I did that.

I'm UK based and have used the Wade Pfau work looking at what he called SAFEMAX (100% success) vs the 4% SWR which didn't have 100% success historically even in the US.  He found for a UK investor, 30 years duration and 50:50 local bonds/equities that the SAFEMAX was 3.05%.  You need to eat and pay investment expenses from that which in the UK are still more expensive than the US.  Switch from local to global and the SAFEMAX increased to 3.26%.  My expenses currently run to 0.22% and at age 46 I expect to be retired for a lot longer than 30 years so I settled on 2.5% plus expenses.

The worst years to start were 1900 and 1907 respectively where I think from a US view the typical worst start year is 1966.  Therefore both went through the 1907 Panic which I guess is not unlike our recent GFC so that could easily (will?) happen again.  It also included a World War which I hope never happens again.

EnjoyIt

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I’m not sure how much seriousness you have in that statement. But I think you need to understand how dividends work since taking the dividend devalues the company by the amount of the dividend. If you use that dividend to eat instead of reinvest, then you are in fact selling down wealth to eat. This is a fact and not really subject to argument.  But, we hope that investment growth is higher than that dividend and other withdrawals and therefor we do not deplete our wealth in the process. Expected returns are definitely subject to debate as seen on every finance forum in existence.

Those who subscribe to the 4% theory believe that future returns will be no worse than the very worst of history. If we are right then our wealth will grow over the decades. If we are wrong we will have to make a few changes to make things work. We understand that it is impossible to eliminate all risk and have decided that working longer to decrease that risk a tiny fraction is not worth our very limited time we have left on this Earth.

Edit: I just realized you are non-US based. I have no clue what historical returns and SWR you have investing in your country therefor my comments above are geared towards US investors.

Yes, I do understand how dividends work and what companies do with those retained earnings if they don't give them back to the shareholders - some create value and some waste it.  That's all quantitative where I understand what matters is total return at the end of the day.  I'm more talking qualitative/psychological.  What's easier to do when the market has fallen by 50%.  Sell some of those equities/bonds to eat or withdraw the dividends that have accrued in the account plus possibly some of the 3 year cash buffer (dividends historically seem to fall less than the asset itself).  Of course we're all wired differently, including our risk profiles, so I expect some would have no issue with the former.  I accepted I had to work longer but now looking back in FIRE I'm glad I did that.

I'm UK based and have used the Wade Pfau work looking at what he called SAFEMAX (100% success) vs the 4% SWR which didn't have 100% success historically even in the US.  He found for a UK investor, 30 years duration and 50:50 local bonds/equities that the SAFEMAX was 3.05%.  You need to eat and pay investment expenses from that which in the UK are still more expensive than the US.  Switch from local to global and the SAFEMAX increased to 3.26%.  My expenses currently run to 0.22% and at age 46 I expect to be retired for a lot longer than 30 years so I settled on 2.5% plus expenses.

The worst years to start were 1900 and 1907 respectively where I think from a US view the typical worst start year is 1966.  Therefore both went through the 1907 Panic which I guess is not unlike our recent GFC so that could easily (will?) happen again.  It also included a World War which I hope never happens again.

May I ask you a question and I hope it doesn’t come off as rude. What is the infatuation with a 100% success rate especially for someone young who can easily adapt if sequence of early returns is similar to some of the worst in history?

Basically by going for 3% you are preparing yourself that the next 5 years have a chance of being worst in history or close to it. If you can survive the first 5 years, you are set even if the worst comes thereafter. While young it is just so easy to adapt for a few years so why strive for 100% if realistically it is impossible to mitigate all risk?

FIRE 20/20

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May I ask you a question and I hope it doesn’t come off as rude. What is the infatuation with a 100% success rate especially for someone young who can easily adapt if sequence of early returns is similar to some of the worst in history?

Basically by going for 3% you are preparing yourself that the next 5 years have a chance of being worst in history or close to it. If you can survive the first 5 years, you are set even if the worst comes thereafter. While young it is just so easy to adapt for a few years so why strive for 100% if realistically it is impossible to mitigate all risk?

I can't answer for RIT, but I think there are some valid reasons.  Any combination of dependents, lean-fire, a high-paid career that requires regular certifications to continue to practice, FIRE for much longer than a 30 year timeframe, lack of skills outside one's career, a current fantastic job that one enjoys, or a personality/risk tolerance that wouldn't allow one to sleep well at night without extreme safety could do it.  For instance, I have a friend who has a young child with significant developmental challenges; they will definitely require significant lifelong care.  If I were in that situation, had a career that was exceptionally difficult to get back into after being out for 5 years, and I loved my job then I'd stick around until I hit 100% and then stay a little longer. 
We're all in different situations.  Some of us can afford to be flexible while others, for any number of reasons, simply can't take significant risks with their FIRE plans. 

Blindsquirrel

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Fire 20/20 is spot on. It is a great big world and some situations and life choices mean bailing out a bit later. One is aged parents who require help, and yes, I have delayed the RE part to help my dad, the guy taught me how to use a spoon. That said, time and tide waits for none, I really do need to quit piddling around and pull the trigger.  This is one of the most powerful calculators I have ever seen and I should hit it every single day until I bolt from work with two middle fingers in the air for Forever Freedom!  Incidentally, if you want a second stream of income, such a SS or rentals, just enter the expense as a negative and the calculator works just fine.

TomTX

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I'm UK based and have used the Wade Pfau work looking at what he called SAFEMAX (100% success) vs the 4% SWR which didn't have 100% success historically even in the US.  He found for a UK investor, 30 years duration and 50:50 local bonds/equities that the SAFEMAX was 3.05%.  You need to eat and pay investment expenses from that which in the UK are still more expensive than the US.  Switch from local to global and the SAFEMAX increased to 3.26%.  My expenses currently run to 0.22% and at age 46 I expect to be retired for a lot longer than 30 years so I settled on 2.5% plus expenses.

Whenever I've dug into Wade's numbers, he has sneakily thrown in some significant additional drag to show the 4% rule "doesn't work"

Are you sure he didn't already put in a hefty management fee on top of the withdrawal amount? Or handicap projected returns to 25% worse than historical? These are both actual examples.

So yeah - if you calculate the 4% rule as "4% withdrawals, and in addition a 1% management fee every year" - it doesn't work. Because it isn't 4%, it's 5%.

Le Barbu

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I just stubled on this and realized I was not the only one who appreciate Maizeman genius!

CCCA

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I just stubled on this and realized I was not the only one who appreciate Maizeman genius!


nope, we should all appreciate @maizeman

CCCA

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I relayed some of this information to @maizeman n his journal (since this visualization was originally his idea) but I thought I'd put it here as well for those of you interested in this tool, and my experience with hosting this tool on my website:

It's been featured on several blogs:
https://www.gocurrycracker.com/you-will-die-before-you-run-out-of-money/
https://www.mymoneyblog.com/longevity-risk-tool.html

It's been discussed on a number of forums including this one (of course), ERE's, early-retirement.org, bogleheads, reddit r/financialindependence, etc. . . Anyway, just looking at the google analytics of my site, it's gotten over 70,000 page views since I uploaded it last year.  See the attachment for more detail. Anyway, it's been hugely popular and lots of comments in various places about how people find it useful, so I'm happy about that. 

The peaks and spikes are when things get picked up on various forums or message boards or it gets linked from other blogs.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2019, 04:23:08 PM by CCCA »

zolotiyeruki

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That's awesome!  And yes, it's a great tool.

You might want to put a space between the two links--they look like a single link

CCCA

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That's awesome!  And yes, it's a great tool.

You might want to put a space between the two links--they look like a single link


thanks for the kind words. 


The forum posting software always seems to cause me problems (chrome on mac os x) with font sizes and other weirdness.

Parizade

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HELP! I'm confused about what to enter in the tax box if not my marginal tax.

obstinate

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Enter your expected average tax rate (i.e. total tax/income)

Parizade

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Enter your expected average tax rate (i.e. total tax/income)

How is that different from your marginal tax rate?

maizefolk

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Enter your expected average tax rate (i.e. total tax/income)

How is that different from your marginal tax rate?

Usually it'll be lower. A single person with $60,000 a year in income would be in the 22% tax bracket (so 22% marginal rate), but their total federal tax liability is only ~$6,500, so their average tax rate is $6,500/$60,000 = ~11%

MonkeyJenga

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Enter your expected average tax rate (i.e. total tax/income)

How is that different from your marginal tax rate?

Marginal tax rate is what your last dollar gets taxed at, so someone with total income in the 35% bracket has a marginal rate of 35%. Not all of their income is taxed at 35% though - the first XXX dollars are taxed at 0%, then 10%, 12%, etc. The average rate after factoring that in will almost always be lower than the marginal rate.

CCCA

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Here's another of my tools that lets you see the tax implications of different amounts of regular income vs long-term capital gainsidends and calculate your average tax rate. 


https://engaging-data.com/tax-brackets/


If you are married, you'll generally be in good shape when it comes to your average tax rate because the standard deduction is double, tax bracket sizes are double but expenses generally aren't doubled. 
« Last Edit: April 28, 2019, 12:51:36 AM by CCCA »

Parizade

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Thanks everyone for you help!

CCCA, I put my numbers into your calculator and it gave me two numbers. Which average tax rate do I use in the RBD calculator, gross or taxable?

CCCA

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Thanks everyone for you help!

CCCA, I put my numbers into your calculator and it gave me two numbers. Which average tax rate do I use in the RBD calculator, gross or taxable?


If you pull out $40k for spending, that is your gross income. The tax you pay, divided by the gross income, is your average tax rate.  This calculator only looks at Federal tax.  State tax will also add more taxes (depending on the state) so you can also bump it up a little more. 

dragoncar

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Here's another of my tools that lets you see the tax implications of different amounts of regular income vs long-term capital gainsidends and calculate your average tax rate. 


https://engaging-data.com/tax-brackets/


If you are married, you'll generally be in good shape when it comes to your average tax rate because the standard deduction is double, tax bracket sizes are double but expenses generally aren't doubled.  [size=78%] [/size]

Wow, hadn't seen that one before.  Really cool.

Much Fishing to Do

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Here's another of my tools that lets you see the tax implications of different amounts of regular income vs long-term capital gainsidends and calculate your average tax rate. 


https://engaging-data.com/tax-brackets/


If you are married, you'll generally be in good shape when it comes to your average tax rate because the standard deduction is double, tax bracket sizes are double but expenses generally aren't doubled.

This is great.  I assume I put qualified dividends in the capital gains area and non-qualified in the regular wage area? 

Metalcat

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i tried to listen to the author speak once on youtube, he was intolerable

Taleb *is* indeed intolerable, but he's still worth listening to IMO.

A lot of fucking brilliant people are completely insufferable because they know how goddamn brilliant they are. If you really can't stand Taleb though, there are many more palatable people who've discussed him extensively.

I originally learned about Taleb through the wildly pleasant and digestible work of Malcolm Gladwell, who frames Taleb in a downright enchanting narrative and implores the reader to tolerate his arrogance.

I doubt I would have enjoyed Taleb without Gladwell's take as an intellectual fluffer so to speak, but thanks to that framing, I'm able to actually enjoy Taleb's particular flair as a fundamental part of who he is and *why* he thinks and behaves the way he does.

It's so important to remember that more conservative withdrawal rates generally result in significantly more money at death, not significantly more security during life.

The market can recover from a lot, so flexibility is really key in the event of a sustained drop, but if something takes it out irreversibly, it won't matter how much you used to have saved.

FIREstache

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Nice tool.   I like that I can increase my planned retirement spending by $10,000/yr in this tool and still get 99% success rate while leaving my flexibility at 0% and a conservative AA.  My 3.5% SWR that I have planned for my drawdown is on the conservative side.  I have a lot of flexibility, though, due to roughly half of my FIRE budget being discretionary spending.  Details in my case study.

Parizade

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Nice tool.   I like that I can increase my planned retirement spending by $10,000/yr in this tool and still get 99% success rate while leaving my flexibility at 0% and a conservative AA.  My 3.5% SWR that I have planned for my drawdown is on the conservative side.  I have a lot of flexibility, though, due to roughly half of my FIRE budget being discretionary spending.  Details in my case study.

Me too! that was a pleasant surprise. I'll probably leave it grow anyway, I don't need it to live comfortably and maybe I can help my grand daughter with college one day.

kenmoremmm

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Much Fishing to Do

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The most incredible result to me in my latest use of this tool was noticing, after wondering how worried I (at 47) should be of the 5% broke wedge I got 33 years from now at 80, that the death wedge hits that same rate (5%) for me in like 6 years from now.....eh....wow.... seems like running out of money should be way down the list on my worries ;-)
« Last Edit: May 16, 2019, 04:15:01 PM by Much Fishing to Do »

secondcor521

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The most incredible result to me in my latest use of this tool was noticing, after wondering how worried I (at 47) should be of the 5% broke wedge I got 33 years from now at 80, that the death wedge hits that same rate (5%) for me in like 6 years from now.....eh....wow.... seems like running out of money should be way down the list on my worries ;-)

Same here.  I have effectively zero chance of running out of money ever, but I have a 20% chance of being dead at 70.

One nice thing about this is that dying early is another method to ensure portfolio survival ;-P  In fact, if you factor in life expectancy, the safe withdrawal rates are even safer:

http://retireearlyhomepage.com/swrlife.html

The above is an oldie but a goodie.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2019, 05:48:44 PM by secondcor521 »

EscapeVelocity2020

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The most incredible result to me in my latest use of this tool was noticing, after wondering how worried I (at 47) should be of the 5% broke wedge I got 33 years from now at 80, that the death wedge hits that same rate (5%) for me in like 6 years from now.....eh....wow.... seems like running out of money should be way down the list on my worries ;-)

It's an interesting thought experiment.  Hopefully you get some indications if you are slowly going broke though, you typically don't get a lot of warning about a  terminal illnesses or death (unless self inflicted, which I guess is another option if you are broke and miserable).  So it's kind of hard to plan around mortality since it can happen suddenly, but technically there should be zero chance of going from FI to broke. 

To be honest, I really don't factor mortality in to any of my FIRE decision making, other than I should probably retire before I die or if work starts to cause health issues.

BussoV6

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The most incredible result to me in my latest use of this tool was noticing, after wondering how worried I (at 47) should be of the 5% broke wedge I got 33 years from now at 80, that the death wedge hits that same rate (5%) for me in like 6 years from now.....eh....wow.... seems like running out of money should be way down the list on my worries ;-)

Yeah, it's a tough one to get one's head around  :-)   I guess it's because we feel we have some control over the risk of going broke vs (perhaps) less control over when the grim reaper comes a calling.

Metalcat

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The most incredible result to me in my latest use of this tool was noticing, after wondering how worried I (at 47) should be of the 5% broke wedge I got 33 years from now at 80, that the death wedge hits that same rate (5%) for me in like 6 years from now.....eh....wow.... seems like running out of money should be way down the list on my worries ;-)

Yeah, it's a tough one to get one's head around  :-)   I guess it's because we feel we have some control over the risk of going broke vs (perhaps) less control over when the grim reaper comes a calling.

Maybe so, but you have a lot of control over how well you live in that time.

TomTX

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Is there any way to enter an income stream which will NOT inflation adjust?

I will have a fixed pension (ie, it would start at $40k and stay at $40k until I die) - plus later on another $24k from social security which will inflation adjust.

Maybe add a flag to keep the income fixed instead of allowing it to adjust? For example instead of 40000;24000 I would enter 40000*;24000 - the 40000 would be kept fixed, the 24000 would inflation adjust.

Mgmny

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Is there any way to enter an income stream which will NOT inflation adjust?

I will have a fixed pension (ie, it would start at $40k and stay at $40k until I die) - plus later on another $24k from social security which will inflation adjust.

Maybe add a flag to keep the income fixed instead of allowing it to adjust? For example instead of 40000;24000 I would enter 40000*;24000 - the 40000 would be kept fixed, the 24000 would inflation adjust.

I don't think you can do that presently. I thought you could put it as negative "extra income" but it looks like that inflation adjusts too...

I think you should just turn off inflation adjustment for the $24k... At least for the past few years it's been hovering below 3%.

I think i'd be conservative in this calculator. Depending on your age, the 24k inflation adjusted over 2 decades might end up only being like an extra $20,000. I don't think the math will get TOO off by $20k over 20 years.

CCCA

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Is there any way to enter an income stream which will NOT inflation adjust?

I will have a fixed pension (ie, it would start at $40k and stay at $40k until I die) - plus later on another $24k from social security which will inflation adjust.

Maybe add a flag to keep the income fixed instead of allowing it to adjust? For example instead of 40000;24000 I would enter 40000*;24000 - the 40000 would be kept fixed, the 24000 would inflation adjust.


Thanks for the suggestion.  I will put it on the list of things to add, though I'm not sure when I will be able to get to it.  Hopefully soon-ish.

TomTX

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I appreciate the responsiveness!

I'm not planning on pulling the FIRE trigger in 2020, so timeframe is flexible for me.

dragoncar

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I appreciate the responsiveness!

I'm not planning on pulling the FIRE trigger in 2020, so timeframe is flexible for me.

I, on the other hand, demand immediate satisfaction.  What kind of business are you running here anyways?  I want my money back!

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!