I did a "maximize" on my base profile in Maxifi (I'm sure something similar would be the case in ESPlanner) and the net result was that it shifted a large amount of discretionary spending from pre-retirement to post-retirement. Much of it so late (80+ years old) that I wondered whether I'd actually be able to make use of it. It was more total discretionary spending over a lifetime, but spent much later in life, at a time when I might not be able to enjoy it or might not even be living.

It was unclear to me that that was "better". Which makes me wonder:

It discretionary spending starting in 2018 and as a result puts my spending in 2017 at 5x what I entered for subsequent years? How cna I get rid of these suggested consumption amounts. If I had that kind of consumption as a suggestions then the excess should go into savings.

I previously asked a question on how to drive discretionary funds to my end of plan. In my case, I have accounted for projected annual spend within the housing entries or Special Expenditures (SE) area.
My goal:
- define funds I can save for other purposes outside of routine annual spend and project the aggregate amount.

I am a new user and trying to initially build a simple economics based model. I have a few areas that I've been trying to resolve and hope you can help:

1. is there a way to control discretionary spend so that unused funds will be driven to end of the plan and essentially be a potential benefit for my heirs? I have entered planned annual spend by category in the "Special Expenditure" area, therefore have accounted for all projected spending over time. I have tried other solutions found in the forum without success. This includes adjusting SOL and smoothing withdrawals.

I just installed the new ESPlanner update 2.35.0, and noticed something that strikes me as a bit odd.

I ran Monte Carlo simulation and for the 2016 recommendations, it has Discretionary Spending (DS)at $115,251 and Current Amount of ($111,658), which also has to have an impact on Savings. How does the program calculate the current amount for DS since I have not entered any amounts for DS for the current year? Likewise the Recommended amount of Saving is ($140,715) and Current Amount is $85,410.

Hi -- I just purchased ESPlanner yesterday, so today is my first day working it. In my first run, I used the Conventional Planning method, specifying the discretionary retirement spend to start in 2017, on the assumption that I retire at the end of 2016 and my wife retires at the end of March 2017. As the attached screen shot indicates, I got a very odd result for the years 2015 and 2016, namely that we should aim to spend over $1.4million each year, before settling down to our target expenditure of 'a mere' $180K per year.

Just want to make sure I have this all straight --

Income is the total income from all sources (wages, investments, SS, Real Estate)

Spending is the total of spending from all source (Housing, Taxes, Medicare..including expenses identified in the special expense entry) but does not include discretionary spending such as vacations or Green Fees

OK, how do I get ESPlanner to let me control total spending? It came up with a number that is about double what we actually spend then draws down our regular savings to pay for it. Huh? I really don't care what ESPlanner thinks we should spend. I only care about what we do spend and can spend in the future. We know what spending our lifestyle requires.

Using 2.29.4 and looking at the Annual Suggestions report, the LSPA is identical to the Discretionary Spending even though I am running the report for two adults and I assume that 2 can live as cheaply as 1.6. What am I doing wrong? Which column is correct?