r/Boldin

I have a pension that is paid X amount in today's dollars at retirement age and that's how I've input it in the income section. When the pension amount shows up in lifetime income projection it is starting at 85% of X instead of the full value. Boldin shouldn't be applying inflation to that amount between now and then since I've already input the amount that I will receive in today's dollars starting at retirement.

Is anyone else having this problem?

I've asked the AI but it is very useless and slow.

Thanks.

New to Boldin, so I may be missing something here about granularity.

For example, under Traditional IRA it reads something like: Current Balance $540,000. Period. Is it really not possible to see individual positions (AAPL, FXAIX, NVDA, etc.) and their amounts?

Even a rudimentary planner like Empower includes these. Am I missing something here?

I’m 55 years old. I have enough in my retirement accounts that if I converted it all to cash, I could live off of it for 15 years. My Boldin scenario basically says that I live off my retirement accounts until I’m 70 and then collect social Security, which should pay for 100% of my expenses at that point. Betting it all on social security scares me.

Any advice? BTW - I really hate my job right now. I’m sick of the commute, the idiocy, not being able to sleep in, my work advice being ignored, etc.

I love spreadsheets and have been doing a simple retirement forecast spreadsheet that basically focuses on total withdrawals. I use a conservative rate of return on a 60-40 portfolio of 1.04 constant. It includes SS and RMDs. I can set up multiple plans and can chart total value of the portfolio and withdrawal rates over time. But it's all on a nominal basis and does nothing about total tax. I will be paying IRMAA penalties no matter what. I do track a simple value of "take home pay" by subtracting standard deductions and applying tax tables. This approach probably is not a good one to use for small nest eggs but for larger portfolios that simply want to maximize withdrawals I think it works.

BLUF: Create a new Boldin scenario and input exactly these values.

STRESS TEST INPUT GUIDE
STEP 1 — Rate Assumptions (switch to Custom)
Setting
Input
General Inflation …4.5%
SS COLA … 1.5%
Housing Appreciation …0%
Medical Inflation … 6%
Weighted Rate of Return … 3.5%

STEP 2 — Longevity
Person … Input
You … 95
Wife … 100

STEP 3 — Income Reductions
Income Source / Current … Stress Test Input
Your SS (Nov 2029) …$1,907/mo
$1,335/mo
Wife’s SS (Sep 2030) …$2,500/mo
$1,750/mo
Military Pension COLA …2% to 0%
VA Disability COLA … 2.5% to 0%

STEP 4 — Add One-Time Expenses
Event … Amount When
Major home repair
$35,000 in 2028
LTC event (you) $75,000 in 2035
LTC event (Wife) $100,000 in 2042

STEP 5 — Survivor Income Loss ⚠️
This is your single biggest unmodeled risk. Both pensions show No Survivor Benefit.
In Boldin, add a negative windfall of −$54,864/yr (−$4,572/mo) starting 2033 to simulate your death before your wife. Run this as a separate sub-scenario.

STEP 6 — Long-Term Care
Change from Medicaid spend-down to:
Setting
Input
LTC Reserve (you) $200,000
LTC Reserve (your wife) $200,000

WHAT TO LOOK FOR
A plan that survives this scenario with savings above $0 through 2058 (your wife’s age 95→100 range) is genuinely stress-hardened. If it fails, the year it fails tells you exactly how much buffer you need.

Thoughts?

How do i incorporate the payout schedule of an annuity so i can model different start years? The AI agent gave me three very strange and incompatible answers when I asked it three times. The longer i wait, the more i can take out per year, obviously, just like social security. But i cant figure out how to integrate the details of that asset so i can model predictions with it. What am i missing?

Wife and I are retired. I'm 67 and she is 63. Have $3M in traditional IRA and $1.8 in Brokerage account with a basis around $1M. We also have existing Roth accounts.

Using Boldin it showed a $29M estate for the baseline with high taxes and IRMMA during the final decade.

I ran the Roth convesion explorer and it recommended a 4 year, aggressive roll over that pushed us into the 37% bracket, high IRMMA and basically drained our brokerage to pay the taxes. Then the rest of our lives paid tax only on Social Security with everything else growing in the Roth IRAs.

I'm going to pay a financial advisor who has a good reputation to review our situation and see what he comes up with but this seems logical. Break even is in about 12 years between the plans.

Boldin users, does this seem like a good plan and reasonable? It says when we pass, we'll have an estate over $42M vs $29M baseline.

I also ran the explorer maxing our tax rate to the 32% bracket. This took 11 years of Roth conversions and IRMMA payments to drain the IRA but left $.6 in brokerage at the end of that period.

It showed an estate of about $41.5M, so effectively the same as the more aggressive plan. Could I get some opinions on the results and my strategy?

Evening Edit: Thank you all who have responded. I received some valuable insight and ideas. Thank you all again.

I'm still going to seek professional advice but here is my tentative plan.

1. Roth Conversions max 24% tax bracket.
   I will only convert Trad IRA down to $500k to 600k.
   Will hold back IRA funds for LTC expenses and QCD to church and charity.

2. Keep $1M in brokerage.
   Continue funding grandchildren's 529 accounts.
   Help adult children buy homes in ridiculously expensive area we live in.
   Try to convince Mrs. OP that we can buy that place in Palm Desert and still do all the traveling she wants.

3. Remind myself how lucky and blessed I am in so many ways.

Edit 2: Someone in the chain identified that my rate assumptions might be different accounting for aggressive conversion. They were correct. All accounts were set at 6.64% and the ROTH at 8%. Which over 25 years creates a big difference. When I set the ROTH to them same 6.64% the amount pushed into Roths were significantly less. Using various conversion methodologies the final value is about $1.5M more but not the amount shown.

However, my strategy for the ROTH is to be more aggressive and hopefully get a little better return. Think more (QQQ) and a little less (VOO+fixed income). Which would make the Boldin Strategies make sense. I.e. Boldin is SANE, but I (all of us) really need to watch the inputs.

We had an initial meeting with a Boldin advisor and it was "ok." We had to cancel the plan delivery meeting. We are now looking to reschedule but this advisor's availability is dismal. Like two open days a month---and it's not because they are overbooked. They only seem to work this platform a few days a month. We are not absolutely sold on this advisor. Can we switch to another one at this point? I have an email in to Boldin but was curious to know if anyone else has done this?

What is the actual severity will damage your retirement plan? Is it simply returns below average or is any positive returns ok? Also what is the actual frequency of SORR. i.e. historically how often does this actually happen? Is it actually rare and we allow it to play to great of a role in our retirement?

trying to figure out how to accurately enter equity compensation. If I enter it as salary payable in lump sum (same start/end month) it doesn't net shares for taxes, so the result is reduction in cash compensation and overstatement of equity that balloons YoY. If I include only net after taxes then it understates total income, tax rates, etc. Plus, it is REALLY annoying to have to enter every year separately

Anyone figured out a workaround?