I wonder what the recommended way is to start a new year, 2022 for example. I believe you don't want to update account balances throughout the year because then you would not be able to see how the modeled scenario compared to real life. This needs to be updated at some point though. I'm thinking of creating a new export file for 2022, set the "Model Starting year" to 2022 on the HOME screen and then updating all my account balances to actuals and changing income amounts if needed. Then, I'll have a new forecast for 2022 based on current information. Sound about right?
Hey Stuart - I think this question confirms what we've been discussing and suggests having a dedicated section in the manual addressing 1) start of year calibration, as well as 2) mid-year check being a good idea
I agree! Another thing I do is take the beginning year balance of my retirement accounts (Regular & Roth IRAs) each year and subtract 10% for each account and input that amount. This is to take into account sequence of returns risk since I am only a few years into my retirement. If stocks don't tank in that year it's a bonus. Doing that every 6 months (mid-year) would work too.
This is precisely what I did today (updated export with all year end balances, fresh start of income for 2022, reset modeling start year to 2022, tweaked inflation up a bit, lowered stock returns a bit). Even before the 2022 version comes out, I have a pretty good sense for what 2022 holds and a fresh projection for future years.
Guys,
I'll add some more discussion on this in the PRC2022 manual. BTW, as a result of these discussions, PRC2022 contains a new feature to facilitate mid-year file updates, so I hope it'll prove to be useful.
