Please reply below with your suggestions on how best to update one's plan start year. What, in particular, needs to be reviewed changed? I intend to update this first post from time-to-time to summarize responses and will sooner or later consolidate the responses in a new user manual section.
Updated Jan 6, 2026:
- Update Account Initial Balances for all accounts, including unrealized LTCG, capital loss carryover on the Taxable Investment accounts and after-tax contributions on the Tax-Deferred accounts.
- Review all income and expense items for significant changes. A good way to do this is to create a Plan Inputs Report which has them all in one PDF which you can print. On the other hand, it may be useful to also look through each page that applies to you as new features may have been added (such as the ability to add inflation-adjustments to Phased Expense categories.).
- In particular:
- Review/update your Social Security benefit amounts to reflect the actual (if already started) or amount from the SS website.
- Review property/rental property/investment/personal loan inputs. A 'new' loan can become an 'existing' loan and the inputs are different.
- Review/update the Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan premium if you may be eligible for ACA tax credits.
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- Review/update your Medicare MAGI for the 2 years prior to plan start, if applicable (you already started Medicare).
- Review your inflation assumptions on the Scenario Assumptions page, including the general inflation rate and adjusters for healthcare, long-term care, college expenses and Medicare premiums and IRMAA brackets. Also, Tax Assumptions.
- Review your portfolio allocation and rate of return assumptions.
On property expenses: review insurance and taxes and update accordingly. I know in my case, taxes have increased significantly more than inflation. (Driven by a sizeable increase in assessed home value, mine jumped 33%).
Please reply below with your suggestions on how best to update one's plan start year. What, in particular, needs to be reviewed changed? I intend to update this first post from time-to-time to summarize responses and will sooner or later consolidate the responses in a new user manual section.
For starters...
- Review/update the Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan premium if you may be eligible for ACA tax credits.
IMO the whole health care section should be reviewed for changes (not just SLCSP). I've learned this section really influences things!
So check: Base health care premiums, SLCSP (if doing ACA), last 2 year's MAGI (if Medciare), out-of-pocket expenses, and health care inflation.
I also update my carry over losses and capital gains in my taxable account.
Expected returns are a core of Monte Carlo results. So many users would want to review expected returns too.
It is pretty straightforward.
After updating the Account Initial Balances, I review the Plan Inputs Report (Review>Reports>Plan Inputs Report) to quickly see if anything has changed without having to click through every screen.
Since I utilize user-defined asset classes & rely on historical modeling over Monte Carlo, I will update the historical returns for each of my user-defined asset classes with the year's returns.
If there are some major economic changes, I will be sure to incorporate realistic worst-case conditions into one scenario to model.
Then I will generate all the tables & reports and run the appropriate analyses. A couple of hours each year at the most. I review the Plan Results Report with my wife to keep her in the loop. She really doesn't care about the details, but enjoys the high-level summary & graphics of the Report. She usually has a few questions and really likes the ease of drilling down to understand our situation better. And it motivates me to fully understand everything to answer potential questions.
After updating the Account Initial Balances, I review the Plan Inputs Report (Review>Reports>Plan Inputs Report) to quickly see if anything has changed without having to click through every screen.
As someone who's never used reports... thank you. Much more efficient than just stumbling through the Build section like I'd been doing.
Set yourself up for mid-year returns: At the beginning of each year, create a new "time period" under advanced portfolio modeling for that single year. Use the default long-term expected returns. But at any point during the year, if you have confidence your final returns will be significantly higher or lower by 12/31, change that asset's rate of return for the current year. Do not change the initial 1/1 balances. Do note that (1) year end taxes will be off a bit for the current year, (2) it is not unusual to have a big drop or rise by October and then a reversal by December.
Here is a detailed outline of the process described:
https://pralanaretirementcalculator.com/community/postid/6825/
