I found your approach to economics-based financial planning refreshing, especially the focus on living standard optimization. How do you suggest households adjust their plans in response to unexpected financial shocks like job loss or medical emergencies?
Awesome! Thank you for your comments. Classically, it is dedicating assets or savings to be in an otherwise untouchable reserve. There will be tradeoffs. First, reserve funds need to be invested in safe assets. If a household worries about shock risk, it would be inconsistent to take investment risk with reserve funds. Second, money thrown into a reserve decreases the annual living standard. My approach is to build a menu. For a given reserve fund target there will be an associated living standard….Have a few potential targets and living standard pairs, then choose one. Make sense?
Have you looked at Pralana's Retirement Planning tool? It is the best high-fidelity tool I have encountered. I, too, have used MGP & Fidelity's tools as cross-checks but they lack the granularity required for a high-confidence plan. Your comments?
I am intrigued @George III ! Thank you for sharing. I see they have the capability for economics-based retirement planning, and I have reached out to them.
What would you say are the biggest limits to this approach and the MaxiFi software? I've been using both Right Capital and MaxiFi recently and have my own thoughts but I would love to hear yours!
Hi Taylor! Right Capital doesn’t support economics-based planning, unless something has changed. A year ago, maybe longer, I want on a call with Right Capital and the consultant I was working with did not have a clue about economic methods.
RC is definitely not using economics-based planning. It's such an industry-standard in the financial planning community I have wanted to understand what it is doing... I'm still figuring it out, though. The one thing I have been able to do that Maxifi can't do is show the effect of continuing to spend at a level above the annual spending cap, which, unfortunately, many people are doing.
Hey there @Taylor Nelsen. I wouldn’t rely on RC or other conventional planning tools to try to make a good money decision. MaxiFi can handle your other question, though.
Run MaxiFi and get the annual spend. To the extent actual spending is higher than the cap and you want to keep it that way, set up a special expense and run it for a lifetime.
Would love hear your thoughts about using risk-based guardrails to calculate and adjust a person's or family's achievable spending using a tool like https://incomelaboratory.com/#
It is not apparent this tool optimizes the lifetime living standard while building trajectories linked to investment uncertainty….If you learn something otherwise, please share.
I found your approach to economics-based financial planning refreshing, especially the focus on living standard optimization. How do you suggest households adjust their plans in response to unexpected financial shocks like job loss or medical emergencies?
Awesome! Thank you for your comments. Classically, it is dedicating assets or savings to be in an otherwise untouchable reserve. There will be tradeoffs. First, reserve funds need to be invested in safe assets. If a household worries about shock risk, it would be inconsistent to take investment risk with reserve funds. Second, money thrown into a reserve decreases the annual living standard. My approach is to build a menu. For a given reserve fund target there will be an associated living standard….Have a few potential targets and living standard pairs, then choose one. Make sense?
Thank you for such a thoughtful answer! Building a menu to assess the tradeoffs of each option is a great idea.
Pleased that resonates with you! Have you found my essays on this topic?
I just did, thank you for pointing me in the right direction!
I like this menu idea!
Have you looked at Pralana's Retirement Planning tool? It is the best high-fidelity tool I have encountered. I, too, have used MGP & Fidelity's tools as cross-checks but they lack the granularity required for a high-confidence plan. Your comments?
I am intrigued @George III ! Thank you for sharing. I see they have the capability for economics-based retirement planning, and I have reached out to them.
What would you say are the biggest limits to this approach and the MaxiFi software? I've been using both Right Capital and MaxiFi recently and have my own thoughts but I would love to hear yours!
Hi Taylor! Right Capital doesn’t support economics-based planning, unless something has changed. A year ago, maybe longer, I want on a call with Right Capital and the consultant I was working with did not have a clue about economic methods.
RC is definitely not using economics-based planning. It's such an industry-standard in the financial planning community I have wanted to understand what it is doing... I'm still figuring it out, though. The one thing I have been able to do that Maxifi can't do is show the effect of continuing to spend at a level above the annual spending cap, which, unfortunately, many people are doing.
Hey there @Taylor Nelsen. I wouldn’t rely on RC or other conventional planning tools to try to make a good money decision. MaxiFi can handle your other question, though.
Run MaxiFi and get the annual spend. To the extent actual spending is higher than the cap and you want to keep it that way, set up a special expense and run it for a lifetime.
Interesting article.
Would love hear your thoughts about using risk-based guardrails to calculate and adjust a person's or family's achievable spending using a tool like https://incomelaboratory.com/#
Here's more on how this approach works in practice: https://www.kitces.com/blog/risk-based-monte-carlo-probability-of-success-guardrails-retirement-distribution-hatchet/
Thanks
It is not apparent this tool optimizes the lifetime living standard while building trajectories linked to investment uncertainty….If you learn something otherwise, please share.