I started in this tool pre-retirement. I can change the starting year of the calculations and the starting values to keep it current. Easy enough. After retirement though, what is the proper way to change over to no work income and also update current account values to get up-to-date projections? This sounds like an easy question but with the detail of the tool, I would like to ask those more familiar so nothing is missed. Thanks.
The tool should 'switch off' your work income as of the date you stated you would stop that job (Stop date on the Income tab). You wouldn't update the current account values. The tool is designed to take your starting values for the year on 1/1/xxxx and grow based on your asset allocation settings and the rates of growth you specified for each asset class.
@hines202 OK, but account values do change simply because the calculator doesn't predict real life (or, say, an unexpected inheritance or winning the lottery). Freezing those numbers in place in a particular and now-past start year just replicates or perhaps even increases variances over and over into the future. In some respects, the calculator's results are so fine-grained that slop is inevitable. I suspect this is why many retirement calculators and spreadsheets offered by money managers round numbers for their estimates. Predictions based on a 2020 retirement date can become quickly outdated by 2021 or 2022, requiring a recasting of assumptions and a restart of the calculator. My guess is that the answer would be to save the prior results as its own file, then in a renamed file begin a new set of predictions with recalibrated assumptions, assets, and entries.
@hines202 Thank you, Bill. I did realize later that I can simply change the starting date of the plan, update the Initial Balances, update the current track record for the return rates on the investments and any different allocation amounts and then I should have a new forecast. At that point I could probably also wipe out the income portions as that will no longer be in effect as you stated. It might seem like overkill but this tool has so much detail and mathematical analyses/optimization, that it seems a waste to try and not use it to it's fullest. At some point in the future, I'll also be able to update the Medical expenses and any other life changes with real numbers.
