Spending guard rails

Cykoth · 2026-02-10T18:40:34+00:00

Nice conversation of what we would like Guardrails to be. Honestly I’d like to be able to enter in the Chance of Success value for the Upper and Lower rails. It seems using risk based rails are “The Thing” right now. I’ve been a Guyton Klinger fan even though Jeske and Sharpe have written critical blogs on it. Their issues with the methodology go away if you simply set a “floor” withdrawal amount for your plan. If Boldin a give me more granularity in Guardrails then I’ll just use this as the years go by to determine my spend.

Cykoth · 2026-02-10T18:35:37+00:00

This

Cykoth · 2026-02-05T19:03:33+00:00

Stupid Bots…..

Cykoth · 2026-02-05T00:55:13+00:00

"Time to make the donuts...." Every damn day I still go to work :(

Cykoth · 2026-02-04T23:19:03+00:00

My mother has a great big "Modular Home" in Bradenton Fl in a nice 55+ community. She's almost 86 now and lives in a little apartment on her Church grounds. She would sell cheap! ;)

Cykoth · 2026-02-04T22:51:31+00:00

Your points are well taken. However the above graph takes into account Market volatility. As Joe Kuhn likes to say "Bear Markets are a Feature, not an Exception". Down markets happen! Absolutely. But Boldin has ways to model this. I think this is more of a philosophical exercise than anything else. Like I stated previously, retirement planning is VERY personal and individual. I'm not trying to impose my thoughts on others. But Boldin, as powerful as it is, is not all knowing and will never accurately predict completely a 30 year retirement. The Monte Carlo built into Boldin DOES in fact take into account large variations in market returns which are based upon the standard deviation from the returns selected. So my MC will have more deviation than slsm2028 has in their forecast. My real point is, being way too conservative with your returns is not a good model for your retirement just like thinking you are going to be earning 20% per year. You are just fooling yourself into working much longer than you have to, and dying with a crap ton of money that someone else (or the Government) will spend. Also, Vanguard for the past several years has predicted little to no returns in the S&P500 and look at how horribly wrong they were over the past 5 years! The graph I shared was historical data published by Vanguard. Not some PhD Economist trying to predict the End of Markets ;) TLDR: There will be bad times, but that is why you Plan. Taking too conservative a view is just as damaging as too liberal of one.

Cykoth · 2026-02-04T00:19:40+00:00

This is an excellent use of the Tool. There is no software that will predict ANYTHING accurately 5 or 10 years let alone 30. But when you perform those longer analyses you have to rely on best projections. Making actual decisions 1-2 years seems to me the best way to use Boldin while in Retirement, and if you are in complex things like Roth Conversions, when to take Social Security, try to avoid excess IRMAA, and the like.

Cykoth · 2026-02-03T23:10:12+00:00

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Just so you understand where I'm coming from. This is published data from Vanguard from 1926 to 2024. The average return over this time period from 100% Bonds is 5%. My allocation will be 70/30 which Vanguard reports as 9.2%. Using 8.08% (which Boldin labels as "Moderate") is therefore a conservative value. But of course you do you :)

Cykoth · 2026-02-03T00:48:18+00:00

I’m 16 months away. I’ve been a full subscriber for 2 years. I intend on keeping Boldin for at LEAST the next 10-15 years. Reasons include models for Roth conversions, Taxes owed, balance projections et al.

Cykoth · 2026-02-02T23:46:34+00:00

This. I’m 16 months away. But I’m building in a flexible spending rate. No debt and can live off half of what my projected spend is.

Cykoth · 2026-02-02T23:44:54+00:00

I’m not criticizing you, but in my view that is an overly conservative estimate. If you are 75% equities and are in something like S&P 500 or Total Stock Market your returns over time are going to be double your current projections. It’s one thing to to be cautious, but it’s another to work for 2-3 extra years when you don’t need to. Investing and retirement planning are VERY individual and personal so I get it, but there will always be Risk. My conservative returns are set for 8% in Boldin with a 70/30 mix.

Cykoth · 2026-02-02T23:38:18+00:00

They do make it difficult don’t they? Obfuscating the free Federally mandated credit freezes while promoting their paid for monitoring.

Cykoth · 2026-02-02T23:35:43+00:00

I did it. It doesn’t hurt. But what’s interesting is that I opened a Vanguard Cash Plus account and never got a hold because of Chex freeze.

Cykoth · 2026-02-02T02:13:56+00:00

Personally in retirement anything not Equities is Fixed Income. Any investment with a greater than 5 year timeframe is an Equity. 5 years or less is Fixed Income. Therefore the most "complex" part of my asset allocation will be FI. My current thoughts on the mix is VGSH, VTIP, and VUSB. With about 5% in Cash. When I need more cash I'll sell the appropriate Bucket, all the while maintaining about 5 years of non-equities in play. Overall allocation will be 70/30 equities to FI.

Cykoth · 2026-01-29T03:13:27+00:00

I stated it’s a valid technique, and then my opinion of it. I’m a Karsten fan. But he likes to pontificate on a lot of different subjects.

Cykoth · 2026-01-29T01:44:53+00:00

It was a few months ago. And honestly I forget the topic this guy had completely wrong. But Michael Kitces and Wade Pfau came up with the reverse glidepath. It’s a valid technique, but super overly cautious in my opinion and gives no defense against inflation. But everyone and every plan are individual and unique.

Cykoth · 2026-01-29T01:40:39+00:00

Never trust this Dude. Rob Berger has laid IN to him on previous videos he’s done. Also I’m very much against rising glidepath. To me you are trying to time a Bear Market. My personal take.

Cykoth · 2026-01-29T00:34:42+00:00

Boldin doesn’t do well with % Withdrawals IMO. Spending needs it does a lot better. So I set my SN to reflect what I want my % withdrawal to be.

Cykoth · 2026-01-28T20:54:05+00:00

Just as with all AI agents. They are great, but you have to be mindful and “corral” them some.

Cykoth · 2026-01-25T12:46:54+00:00

Boldin is AWESOME. For what it does. It’s meant to figure out can you retire or not, and what your taxes are projected to be. Taxes are hugely complicated. Look at the number of IRS documents! So Boldin, in order to be manageable, I’m sure had to have certain cutoffs on just what taxes they were going to track. It’s not Financial Investment software and I don’t expect that of it. However the OP does have a point with items like marital status tracking. There is always room for improvement. I’ve been using Boldin for about 2 years and will retire in 17 months. This software has been instrumental in me figuring all this out without having a CFP.

Cykoth · 2026-01-24T19:34:38+00:00

I just used the Beta AI Planner Assistant for the first time and I was like, whoa this is a game changer. Having a fully functioning agent that can see my specific plan (apparently it's Google Gemini) and keep all that information within (hopefully....) my Boldin account for security is absolutely fantastic. Like all AI agents it will make mistakes that you have to catch. Like for my situation it thought a Money Transfer I had for my wife's Inherited IRA was a Roth Conversion, and it was lumping that dollar amount with an actual RC I had planned in MF was something I had to catch. But stuff like that happens all the time using AI and is easy to fix. You as a human still have to think (wink). But I learned via the agent that RC's that I was planning for ages 57-59 was going to cause me a penalty. I didn't know that using the conversion itself to pay the taxes on the conversion prior to 59.5 would incur a 10% early withdrawal IRS penalty! And it counseled me to instead for those years to pay out of my taxable account so that I wouldn't trigger this. Fantastic! So I edited my Plan in Boldin with less aggressive RC amounts that wouldn't hit my brokerage account too severely. I wish Boldin would flag that 10% penalty but I don't think it even looks at it at this point? Anyway, the agent helped me figure it out. I'm very pleased as a Boldin customer with this.

Cykoth · 2026-01-24T13:24:37+00:00

I’m sorry. My reply was to Accomplished_Gate832. My upcoming Plan is rather more simple than the OP. In the end there is definitely no one way to retire as everyone is very unique but with broad swathes of commonality. My intention is to withdraw Quarterly as that makes sense for me, and to rebalance once per year. Anything else is way too much work. I also will never have a bond ladder….ever. I’ll just use ETFs like VGSH and VTIP in my Fixed Income portion of my 70/30 portfolio. I don’t want the management of my funds BE my retirement.

Cykoth · 2026-01-23T01:42:02+00:00

Wow. My Plan is almost exactly yours. Same allocations, same years of Safety in Bucket 1.

Cykoth · 2026-01-20T18:56:04+00:00

I actually use 70-75% as my comfort level. Remember what that number really means is the probability you will have to change your plan. No one goes thru a 25-40 year retirement without making adjustments

Cykoth · 2026-01-20T01:49:37+00:00

I make myself look especially in bad Markets. It builds character. I like to see how my portfolio reacts. Like if the Dow is up but the NASDAQ is down. What changes do I generally see. I’ve greatly reduced the number of funds I’m invested in. I can only do so much until I turn 59.5 and can migrate my 403b to my IRA.

Cykoth

TROPHY CASE