How is Retirement Account Withdrawals Calculate

I'm working through the Excel sheets to better understand how each cell is calculated. I can track most of them back towards what I input or can rationally impute. I believe that Total Income must equal Total Spending. Retirement Account Withdrawals should then should be Total Income less any income sources (i.e. Non-Asset Income, etc.). However, this calculation does not match what is in the report.

Can someone explain how Retirement Account Withdrawals ARE calculated?

Comments

dan royer's picture

Actually Total Income - Total Spending +/- Saving(withdraw) = 0

So retirement account withdraws are just a part of Total Income. See the Total Income report for the details that make up total income.

Dan,
In my PDF Report, in the Annual Suggestions tab, the Annual Suggestions table lists that our smoothed Living Standard per Adult is $73,182. Yet, when I scroll down a page to the Annual Suggestions Living Standard per Adult graph it depicts a level ~ $63k throughout our lifetimes. Other reports reacted to my changes but this one appears to be stuck on the lower amount. Is this a bug in my ESP+ 2.38.8?

dan royer's picture

I can take a look at the Annual Suggestions report (I don't recall it from memory and it's been years now since I've used ESPLanner other than to provide support for the few remaining users). I recall ignoring that report because it's based on some other data you enter about how much you are spending maybe? Anyway, it's the annual suggestions report that you want to go on.

There's an update for ESPlanner download.

YOu didn't want to move over to MaxiFi Planner?

Dan

The Annual Suggestions section of the report has a table which recommends Discretionary Spending and Saving suggested amounts annually with the last column calculating the Living Standard/adult. Is that the correct amount I should use and if so why does in not match the Living Standard/adult graph a page later?

I have considered switching to MaxiFi Planner but for my recently retired status relying on a pension, SS, and 401k, not sure what MaxiFi Planner can help me with that I don't already have with ESP+. Also with all the security breaches and hacks not sure about a cloud based app.

dan royer's picture

The Annual Suggestions report is the one to use. The charts for discretionary and per adult living standard should match the amounts shown in the Annual Suggestions report.

MaxiFi is a much easier program to use and secure to use. Here's the document on security: https://maxifiplanner.com/security

MaxiFi is easier to use, better documented, I can provide much better support, and you don't enter any sensitive account numbers in MaxiFi. ESPLanner will not be an option a year from now when we stop updating it. The last update will be in January 2022.

Dan

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