Posted: 5/17/2026 7:25:17 PM EDT
| I want some software that I can use to help flesh out my retirement plans. I am 59 plan to pull the pin in 5 years. If I can make the math work, I will go earlier. Small pension, multiple retirement accounts. A little more than half my money is managed, the 401k is self managed and I am reading a lot about medical plan costs. When I retire, I am also retiring my wife who just turned 56. So we will need a plan and strategy to purchase health insurance. I am not sure if there is a software program that will address all of this. I keep seeing Bouldin mentioned online but didn't know if there is better stuff out there. |
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I use a mix of these: https://www.boldin.com/ https://firecalc.com/ https://ficalc.app/ And the Fidelity planning tool. |
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I used claude AI. basically fed it my statements from ameriprise, fidelity, etc. told it my basics (salary, contributions, etc) wife info, age, told it to create a retirement dashboard web page and it updates daily directly from ameriprise and fidelity. works pretty well. It has a financial advisor (or similar) "skill" that it uses to make recommendations. My friend is my ameriprise "advisor" and I had him review it and said it was pretty spot on. The ameriprise and fidelity retirement planning confirmed roughly the same % success rates (they all used monte carlo simulations). I could probably just put everything in a single fund and use that. But I don't trust it :) |
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Originally Posted By FALARAK: I use a mix of these: https://www.boldin.com/ https://firecalc.com/ https://ficalc.app/ And the Fidelity planning tool. Thanks. The firecalc is interesting. I ran some basic numbers with just my desired income and my current nestegg, and it said I had a 0% success rate. I added my pension and Social Security values and it says 100% success rate. I upped the annual income by $10k and it said 98.4% success. That certainly gives me something to think about . I'm gonna dig in to some of these other tools and see what it tells me. Thanks everyone, and if anyone has any more suggesttions, please put them in. |
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Originally Posted By jd2395: I used claude AI. basically fed it my statements from ameriprise, fidelity, etc. told it my basics (salary, contributions, etc) wife info, age, told it to create a retirement dashboard web page and it updates daily directly from ameriprise and fidelity. works pretty well. It has a financial advisor (or similar) "skill" that it uses to make recommendations. My friend is my ameriprise "advisor" and I had him review it and said it was pretty spot on. The ameriprise and fidelity retirement planning confirmed roughly the same % success rates (they all used monte carlo simulations). I could probably just put everything in a single fund and use that. But I don't trust it :) How does it create this dashboard? is this something you save on your computer or a web based thing? if web based how do you secure your information? |
| I use chat GPT. I simply tell it my income, account types and balances my current age, spouse age and tell it what age I want to retire and to build a plan to get there at the income level I specify in todays dollars. I review the output then prompt it changes based on my comfort level of hitting those contribution levels until something workable is built. |
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Well I have been toying with firecalc and Boldin for a couple days. Quite a coincidence. Sunday I sign up for Boldin and Monday morning it was announced that my current employer is purchased by a larger player and now, everyone is trying to figure out when the layoffs are gonna come.. Supposedly there won't be any for 18 months, but the important thing is the programs say I'm good today. I could walk and hit my lower income target starting this month, 97% of the time. If I can wait to years, it bumps my success up to 99% and gives me a chance to pay off my building Loan. I was aiming for 5 years from now......now I am aiming for 2 years. I even did a project with me dying in 5 years....to see where that leave my wife. It works out fine. |
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One thing I like about right capital is that it tells you where your living expenses are coming from each year (ie. taxable, pretax, or tax free) and it tells you how much money you should roth convert each year in order to minimize your overall tax bill. It drives home the fact that for most people your roth should be used last so it should be invested most aggressively and that simple planning for taxes can save anybody 5-figure dollar amounts and most people can save 6-figures. |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: One thing I like about right capital is that it tells you where your living expenses are coming from each year (ie. taxable, pretax, or tax free) and it tells you how much money you should roth convert each year in order to minimize your overall tax bill. It drives home the fact that for most people your roth should be used last so it should be invested most aggressively and that simple planning for taxes can save anybody 5-figure dollar amounts and most people can save 6-figures. the thing about roth conversions that sucks is that it will rais us above the threshhold for ACA, so insurance will be extremenly expensive. I'm trying to figure out what strategy makes the total cost lowest and still achieves the conversion. I keep going back over the plans to try tomake sure I have everything correct. I had always figured I would have enough money but not enought hat I have to worry about RMD's.....if the plans are correct, I need to account for RMD's |
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Originally Posted By WoodChuckDad: the thing about roth conversions that sucks is that it will rais us above the threshhold for ACA, so insurance will be extremenly expensive. You need a plan. You don't have to roth convert everything - you can convert any amount the keeps you under whatever limit/cliff you are dealing with. You can also wait until medicare starts (presumably you'll be off obamacare then?) and do big roth conversions then and only worry about a small irmaa expense ($75 per month or something like that?). I keep saying it... the tax implications between retiring and 73 when RMDs kick in are massive. The earlier you plan around them the better off you will be. |
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The irony of having enough assets to retire early but then managing MAGI to maximize ACA government subsidies for heath insurance is not lost on me. It certainly requires a plan and tax diverse assets Ideally Roth IRAs 401k, and a traditional brokerage to draw from. |
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Originally Posted By OregonShooter: The irony of having enough assets to retire early but then managing MAGI to maximize ACA government subsidies for heath insurance is not lost on me. It certainly requires a plan and tax diverse assets Ideally Roth IRAs 401k, and a traditional brokerage to draw from. I'm still a few years (5 to 10) from retirement; but I am considering an investment in STRC to get around managing my MAGI for health insurance subsidies. Apparently, the monthly (soon semi-monthly) dividends are considered "return of capital", so no tax issues (i.e. no income) for approximately the first 10 years. Yes, STRC is a new product; but I am watching it closely to see how it performs in good times and bad. Accountant |
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Another vote for Firecalc. You can make a small contribution to the Firecalc site and then get the ability to model individual years expenses. Do recommend as this allows you to model years with higher expenses due to One Off's or Travel beyond your normal Budget. |
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Seems like the software I check require too much info and account access which is ridiculous. I use the Free Tools and basic math.  First, start tracking expenses. All expenses to get an idea of what you need. Once again this software wants all your info so this too is done manually in Excel. The biggest issue is Medical (ACA). Find the cut-off amount to receive Free Care or keep it affordable and only draw that amount from your taxable account. Then use Saving or ROTH or IRA for the rest. If you can't make this work for the next 5 years or so, you may want to wait. If you exceed the cut-off amount for ACA, it jumps from free to $23k a year or from affordable $12k a year to $30K+ year. |
TBD
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I just want to say thank you again. I have used Ficalc, firecalc and Boldin ( I purchased the annual subscription). I am 59.5 years old. I am planning to retire next year, instead of 5 years from now. I'm selling my house and moving out of state. I will still be close enough to spend time with my grand kids, but it will be cheaper to live. The math opened up a whole new world of opportunity for us that we had not considered. I was making double principle payments on my building loan, with the plan of rolling that over to the land loan and finishing it all in 5 years. By shifting the numbers around and making different scenarios, I realized that I was working a job just to pay a mortgage on a house and farm. I can sell this one, move 50-100 miles across the border, buy a comparable house with land, with no mortgage, and be done. I got 5 years of my life back. |
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Originally Posted By WoodChuckDad: I just want to say thank you again. I have used Ficalc, firecalc and Boldin ( I purchased the annual subscription). I am 59.5 years old. I am planning to retire next year, instead of 5 years from now. I'm selling my house and moving out of state. I will still be close enough to spend time with my grand kids, but it will be cheaper to live. The math opened up a whole new world of opportunity for us that we had not considered. I was making double principle payments on my building loan, with the plan of rolling that over to the land loan and finishing it all in 5 years. By shifting the numbers around and making different scenarios, I realized that I was working a job just to pay a mortgage on a house and farm. I can sell this one, move 50-100 miles across the border, buy a comparable house with land, with no mortgage, and be done. I got 5 years of my life back.  Sounds like a decent plan. |
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Originally Posted By WoodChuckDad: I realized that I was working a job just to pay a mortgage on a house and farm. I can sell this one, move 50-100 miles across the border, buy a comparable house with land, with no mortgage, and be done. I got 5 years of my life back.  |
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Originally Posted By WoodChuckDad: I just want to say thank you again. I have used Ficalc, firecalc and Boldin ( I purchased the annual subscription). I am 59.5 years old. I am planning to retire next year, instead of 5 years from now. I'm selling my house and moving out of state. I will still be close enough to spend time with my grand kids, but it will be cheaper to live. The math opened up a whole new world of opportunity for us that we had not considered. I was making double principle payments on my building loan, with the plan of rolling that over to the land loan and finishing it all in 5 years. By shifting the numbers around and making different scenarios, I realized that I was working a job just to pay a mortgage on a house and farm. I can sell this one, move 50-100 miles across the border, buy a comparable house with land, with no mortgage, and be done. I got 5 years of my life back. Great news! |
"It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things."
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
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Originally Posted By OwO: I'm poors so I use Excel for budgeting and forecasting. You want to make enough to cover things and still have a good life, while limiting your tax liability. I easily made it the first year with plenty of money left over, which made planning for this year much easier. |
Preferred pronoun: MARINE
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Originally Posted By R_S: I've been using a bunch of tools. This monte carlo calculator isn't terrible: https://www.lifebynumbers.net/us/calculators/monte-carlo-retirement But others already listed are quite good. Hadn’t seen that one before, had to try it out. Not super impressed as I can enter a retirement spending well below pension and SS income, and it is still below 100% success rate, which seems odd…. And you can’t breakout SS from pensions, it doesn’t ask about COLA’s, etc. Also I don’t see if it is inflation adjusting the future numbers or not. Personally I use most of the ones mentioned already, including Boldin, but I like this one as it is simple, but you can play with tax rates, varying COLA’s on pensions, timing of income and expenses, etc. Just be sure to read and understand what each number is, it wants post tax income amounts as inputs. Also its future numbers are not inflation adjusted, so you will need to extrapolate that, which is easy enough to do if you keep your spending constant. (Basically I found that if one of us lives to be 100, the final total amount needs to be divided by 3 to be in today’s dollars, assuming inflation averages what I input). https://www.financialmentor.com/calculator/best-retirement-calculator |
a loaded gun won’t set you free, so you say…