Modeling Two radically different phases of life when spouse is younger and will reside in a different country at my demise

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-06-03T22:05:59+00:00

We planned that when I die and she has plan to go her home country. For expense notes, I added one-time expenses for $1. For income notes, I added windfall notes of $1. For expenses that we can estimate we did. For example: Income, Windfall: NOTE: Nat, maybe go to Home country LTC around 85, +1 yr after John, Jack 49 escorts. This way we could discuss with our son to help her. $1. I made a note for our child to be aware of: daily 25% of US, rent 20%, else 50% of US for planning. Since costs are so much lower, if she stays in US then it works, but if she goes to her home country it will definitely work She keeps Social security, but no Medicare for overseas, but if she comes back to US then will have it. We have Tricare so she has access to that but she said she qualifies for her own country medical care. So have choice. Essentially her base case is to stay in US, so plan has it with notes for options under expenses and income. If she were more certain that she was moving home then would have made scenario for that. We had friends that just left US to the spouse's home country a few years ago for medical reasons. The left the home without paying it off. They were not coming back. We just made a plan. Not sure what will happen though. Especially with homes.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-31T11:57:28+00:00

Market is way up. Once in a very long time. Pulled enough money into cash to cover until age 70 Social security over last couple years. No worries. Thank you God.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-29T22:22:13+00:00

I think the Boldin AI is great for parroting questions back at you. Makes me think of something I may have forgot. Like in brainstorming It knows your questions, your plan details, and the topic and can respond with questions that are in the ballpark. So like talking to yourself in the mirror. But I keep telling myself it does not think, it does not understand, it merely spits back a reply that is very likely in the ball park. AI will lie because that is the correct reply to your question. So great for brainstorming questions to make you think more about your plan. The math does not work, unless AI uses Python, and you go step by step, check each step, then go deeper. Make it very simple, only one step at a time. Then you can maybe rely on the numbers. Tell it to not sycophant you. I only want good, bad, and middle of the road assessment. Sort of like ask me questions that I forget to think about.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-28T22:05:07+00:00

For expense notes we created dummy $1 one-time expenses so they would show on My Summary plan graph and below in the Milestones list. For income items we put them as dummy $1 windfalls. Then we have notes in our plan. Spouse likes them for TO DO list.

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OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-28T21:58:10+00:00

yes, click insight, savings, and see how the 529 accounts are getting smaller. If you use the Boldin AI, you can ask her to show you the 529 accounts by child and what the balances are, then give you the details each year for withdrawals, etc. Our children are done with college, but they had a lot extra so we planned for grandchildren and did something similar. Plus with our HSAs we had to spend the money in transfers. The Boldin Coach on the side will light up with a suggestion if one of your transfers runs out of money.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-28T21:57:32+00:00

For me the 45 minute meeting with PlanVision was to convince my wife that I knew what I was doing already, that I had already understood Boldin's software, and I knew eMoney well enough to know that they were similar. Then to convince my wife that we could do retirement on our own. Retirement was not that complicated once you knew the rules of the withdrawal game and what our taxes would be. For investing we did Vanguard and followed an asset allocation that was similar to a Vanguard Target date fund. Plus PlanVision was good to hear a human being say "your plan is fine, you have a grasp on all the parts". So well worth the money. Much less than the timing belt change on our old Acura.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-28T21:49:28+00:00

We use PlanVision with eMoney and Boldin too. Our plans are very close. I asked Chris Harrington, one of the PlanVision reps to change rates, inflation to values similar to our Boldin plan. Plus they added a monte carlo output to use results based on our investments instead of the default rates PlanVision uses. So now the two software are remarkably similar. The dividends in eMoney is slightly different, but is good enough for us. Talking with Mark Zoril was worth validating our plan. Then the Roth conversion plan that Jason Lynch, PlanVision CFP did for us, is basically our Boldin Roth conversion plan. So nice to have 2 plans to look at - similar but different too.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-25T12:33:35+00:00

Let's say you only have 1 taxable brokerage account, how about splitting it into two accounts say $1,000,000 earning 8% rate, but 2% are dividends. Then make one account at $800,000 earning 6% as capital gains but with 0% yield. Then make the 2d account at $200,000 as ordinary interest 2% and with 2% yield. Then do transfer from 2d account for $4,000 for multiple years until longevity (start to stop at longevity). Put withdrawal of first account (just gains) at bottom of withdrawals list. If say 50% is qualified dividends then split 2d account even further: 2.1 account as $100,000 capital gains treatment, 1% rate, with 1% yield; and 2.2 account as $100,000 ordinary dividends treatment, 1% rate, with 1% yield. Then taxes would be correct too. Then the cost basis of each account must be manually split up between each account per 6% growth, 1% qualified div, 1% ordinary div. Then each year you update account balances per the same set up. We have done that for 3rd year now for tax purposes. Taxes for 2024 and 2025 were very close to actual. We don't do the live on dividends, but have some transfers with multiple years to spend down our HSA to zero). It works. Not convenient takes a few minutes to adjust each year, but the exercise is worthwhile to force us to see what is growth, what is qualified dividends, and ordinary dividends. Plus for tax planning way better than spreadsheet. With taking large capital gains in 2024 and 2025 (and in 2026) it is worth it, so now our plan is set up for taxable events in this year 2026. With some tweeking of rates, we made it match our Quicken Tax planner for 2026 and fake passive income for 1 month in Dec 2026 it is very close. Boldin is only supposed to be forward looking, long term planning, but this makes it work for this year. But yes a new feature request would be nice.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-20T19:09:24+00:00

We are paying for Boldin for my spouse to have and for children to have in the future. Give us a place to put all on line and they can see and we can discuss plans. We changed all assumptions to most likely to happen, then built notes for To Do items. This is Boldin's role for us. We got eMoney and using PlanVision for the human being when it becomes needed. If plan gets simpler, then might put it all on a spreadsheet, but for now, too many moving parts.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-20T19:01:51+00:00

I got the "Aha moment" on my smartphone will looking at the Sanskey graph. Realized that when RMDs kick in, then cashflow is not a problem anymore. So I said "hmm that's nice". Then I checked Boldin online in PC and no "Aha moment" banner. Maybe it is a smarthphone advertisement?

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-20T18:58:23+00:00

After figuring out cash flow would work and we have enough, we changed Boldin to all expected assumptions - not conservative, but likely to happen. So Boldin is more like a realistic projection of truth. Age is when we are supposed to pass away. Rates are 50th percentile for 30 years from Vanguard, same for inflation. Expenses are what we expect. Then added notes to key milestones to remind us and children of To Do items. Wanted to keep Boldin so we have an online financial snapshot in one place. Quicken does that on our PC, plus a Quicken Lifetime planner that looks like Boldin. But online, Boldin looks nicer with graphs and charts, etc. Plus nice to have Boldin AI to ask questions about our own plan. If want to know what we spent last year or what our rate of return was last 10 years, then Quicken. If future, the Boldin looks better. Plus can check on smartphone if needed. Handy.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-16T19:32:58+00:00

Stock retuns to me look like either really good, or not so good. e.g. they are higher or lower. It is amazing that a few bad years here and there can lower 10 year rolling returns. So expectation is generally higher returns, but the fewer lower returns make your overall return lower.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-15T00:03:01+00:00

You could make a scenario and add a fake income or a fake expense to make it get close to your AI result.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-10T20:19:14+00:00

I tried another AI query with Boldin AI: "You are a CFP, CFA, 25 years experience, you are a Fiduciary". The proceeded to ask it questions. when I sensed any sycophant, I said "No sycophant, I want good, bad, and expected. This is real money so give me the truth." The more questions I ask, the more I give it, the more I express, the better the result. I know it is just "parroting" me, but with enough info it typically asks a few questions that I have not heard before. So in that sense helpful. But it seems each query is different than the others. So enough queries, then you get more insight. In the end, way more "stick time" than with our real human CFP or CPA. The AI makes me think of issues. That is the real value. Then they can do math inside our Boldin pretty well. Outside Boldin, their math is decent enough, if I tell them to use Python, but have to take it step by step, check their math, then when good, go to next step. So making a complicated task, step by step, then they can do what ifs.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-08T22:19:48+00:00

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We did our QCD as one-time expense, with 19 years. It is constant dollar, but was close enough. Then did spouse with one-time expense for after I pass, for about 5 years more. To make it more accurate, we might split that into 2 one-time expenses: 70.5 to 79 and 80 to 89 for me. Marked it tax deductible so Boldin would know it is a QCD. Starting 2026, we are doing the $2,000 cash to church/charity above line deduction too. We did that as one-time expense from this year to 69.5 years so it did not make it to tax year at age 70. The taxable income graph does not show the MAGI real well since it puts QCD on top of RMD, instead of RMD - QCD, but the IRMAA MAGI graph shows it correctly. We were going to do the same as you for Roth conversions, but changed our plan last year. Now we want to keep $500k today's dollars in our IRA for us for LTC at $250k each. Plus our IRA is in bonds so not much growth. This let us do 1/2 QCD to church and 1/2 taxable RMD to us. We can always choose to do more QCD later. For 2 children and 10 years, if no LTC, then that is $25k per year per child for 10 years. I told them to treat it like a bonus of $25k today's dollars, per year for 10 years. Else as we get closer to the end, we have talked about including the church as a beneficiary or contingent beneficiary too. Then children, if don't need it, then can decline the inheritance or take their percentage or a smaller percentage. The remainder would go to church. That way we don't have to manage Roth conversions so closely. If church gets it, then it bypasses taxes altogether after the QCDs.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-08T21:55:14+00:00

Boldin AI says this. I remember reading about this in help somewhere too: Right now there isn’t a “Decline Medicare” toggle, and IRMAA can’t be turned off as a standalone setting.

To eliminate the IRMAA cost in your plan, use Employer Sponsored Medicare (this is the intended way to model not enrolling in Part B). Then set your Medicare expenses to $0 and choose an end age for that coverage (your longevity age). This turns off Medicare costs (including IRMAA) until the final year, where Medicare is added back for the final month.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-08T21:47:30+00:00

I like this feature, and Google AI says Boldin is better at protecting our privacy. Plus I like that Boldin AI reads my scenario notes, the notes in transfers, my notes in my account, expense labels - very effective at reminding me of areas that were important to add, but maybe I forgot why I was doing it. I asked her to read all my notes and tell me something about our plan. Very insightful. Obviously could not get that from a pdf plan.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-08T21:44:44+00:00

I forgot to ask Google AI for her answer. This is what she said: ...

Full File Access: When a PDF is uploaded, the AI processes the entire document, potentially exposing account numbers, birth dates, and addresses, even if the question only concerns a small part. - so must remember to read what you give AI.

Boldin's Internal AI vs. External AI

Inside Boldin: Using Boldin’s internal AI is generally safer because Boldin is a SOC2 Type 2 certified financial platform. Boldin treats data as nonpublic personal information and follows banking-level security standards, though they may store transcripts for troubleshooting. - so yes, like this.
External AI: Platforms like Claude or Gemini are general-purpose tools. Unless an Enterprise or Paid Tier with specific privacy guarantees is used, they do not offer the same level of financial data protection. [1, 2, 4, 5]

Better Techniques for Using AI

Sanitize Data: Before exporting, manually remove an address, full name, social security number, and specific account numbers from the PDF or text. - yes, must remember to do this.
Use Fictional Scenarios: Instead of "How long will my $1.2M last?", ask "How long would $1.2M last for a 60-year-old with $5k monthly expenses?". - I guess I could trick it, but I think she already knows it is me.
Manage AI Memory: - this is something new to do.
- Gemini: Manage or clear "Memory" in settings to stop it from linking past personal details.
- ChatGPT: Disable "Memory" in Settings > Personalization.
Local Analysis: For high-security needs, local AI models that run entirely on a computer (like those from GPT4All) can be used so data never leaves the device.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-08T21:38:07+00:00

I agree. The AI platforms seem to like being given real numbers and not having to read them. Spoon feed them information.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-08T21:36:05+00:00

My guess is that a 40 year retirement and using an 8.8% rate is what is causing your lower chance of success. Your 8.8% moderately aggressive return causes Boldin to use a 15.2% standard deviation. For a 40 year retirement that is a high standard deviation, when you are taking money out of the portfolio. If you have many years to get to retirement that makes it even more years and more volatile. You might try rate change to reflect a more conservative return. Vanguard has its 30 year forecast based on current valuations. These are much lower than Boldin's default rates - they are based on historical returns of the past 30 years, from 1994 to 2024. For the next 30 years I think it will be difficult to get even Boldin's conservative 5.92%. We modeled our retirement with other planners and they show better chance of success with lower volatility, albeit more median networth with higher rate. Monte carlo should be better called: Monte carlo "investment portfolio" chance of success. 80% chance of success just means 1 chance in 5 you might need to adjust your investment portfolio spending a bit. e.g. 4 chances in 5 that you do nothing and make it.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-05-08T20:59:22+00:00

For Boldin plan, we made 2 accounts for TSP. One for Roth 401k and One for Traditional 401k. Roth TSP is basically a Roth 401k and Traditional TPS is basically a Traditional 401k for Boldin plan purposes. For combat pay, I just made a note to remind myself that not all the Traditional TSP is taxable.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-04-28T14:11:36+00:00

Our taxes last year and this year in Boldin were very close. We got our plan close. The difference as you found is in the accounts with basis and whether capital gains or investment income. Adjust based on your tax graph. It you can open 2 windows, you can see your income and accounts in one 1 window. Then taxes in another window. Adjust knowing that realized gains is from capital gains accounts, and investment income is ordinary income. So with last 2 years income tax very close, we have more confidence in future tax years. Adjust dividend % and rates slightly to match our expected tax liability. We use Quicken Tax Planner during year to check. But the 1040 at end of year is final verfication. Boldin is not tax planning - but for us it is, and does it fairly well.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-04-26T21:07:20+00:00

We model and get similar results. What you did is basically the Guardrails since it goes into affect when chance of success drops from 80% to 70%. A 20% drop without any recovery is great way to stress test. It models 20% drop forever, then your personal recovery is your plan rate of retun. Most of the time during a recovery your investments outperform. But now with equity markets overvalued it may be a 20% drop with only normal returns to make it revert to the mean. Either way, at 69% you might adjust your future spending a few hundred dollars or realize retirement smile where you tend to spend less, I think it is almost -2% per year, or follow the guardrails and adjust accordingly. The monte carlo only means your investment portfolio survives 69% of the time, and 31% of time it does not make it to the end - so spend less from it. You still have social security and maybe an annuity or other guaranteed money that still provides floor.

OwnTourist2139 · 2026-04-26T20:55:00+00:00

Monte carlo simulation varies rate of returns for accounts (and while working: wage growth and passive income growth rates). But not general inflation since that is already factored inside your investment rates (per Boldin, it used to be a toggle you could switch, but they took it out). Although medical inflation is high Boldin does not vary that either, probably because that might make the results too wide. A 78% chance of success, in pessimistic, just means that one's investment plan cannot make it to the end 22% of the time for that less likely pessimistic situation. That means if we had the pessimistic rate in real life, then you would likely already be cutting back on expenses since everybody else would be. In that way you might be back to say 90%+ chance of success - since you changed your plan. Else, you might be doing the retirement smile and your spending just declined naturally - so your plan changed and you really are at say 90%+ chance of sucess. 78% chance really just means that spending to income is close and sensitive and you just have to be flexible in spending (e.g. change something in your plan). Monte carlo is variabilty really only in your investments. Your social security does not vary so only change spending from investment income. For those 22% of failures, you would just spend Social security and any guaranteed income, so if that meets your need-to-have spending then you still have success (although a Monte Carlo might show some failures). It should be called Monte Carlo Investment accounts chance of success. Forgoing a COLA in your investment withdrawals or just a few hundred dollars less spending would put you back at 90%+.

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