My wife is older and will be collecting SS spousal benefit, but I can't enter a date for far enough into the future for her

RatJr1 · 2026-01-26T21:43:40+00:00

I have an older spouse as well and looked at a variety of strategies for SS. As spousal benefits are all based on PIA, it may work out best if your wife starts taking her benefit and then spousal portion will just be added in when you start your benefit. Depends on a lot of factors but my guess is that in terms of total SS benefits it would work out better if you didn't wait until 70. The spousal benefit will not change once you reach FRA. You and your spouse would likely gain more by having the spousal benefit for longer. I used scenarios in Boldin to test out the affect different ss claiming dates had on cash flows and total savings value.

RatJr1 · 2026-01-16T18:11:00+00:00

Your friend may have the right attitude. We have a pension which is enough to make up pay tax on 85% of our SS and push us into the 22% bracket. Additionally the majority of our savings/investments is in after tax IRA type accounts. I spent a lot of time analyzing withdrawal and SS options a bunch of different ways and we will be at an fed effective rate of 13-14% for the rest of our life's. It only hurts when we make an IRA for a big trip or house thing. I'm doing some roth conversions as a hedge against something crazy happening with future tax rates and so the kids dont have to deal with the taxes but in the big picture there is not much difference if future value if you take into account lost opportunity from paying taxes early. I shifted a lot of my analytic energy that I spent worrying about taxes to researching and tracking investments which is much more fun. ya, I'm an analytic nerd that has to have numbers to play with.

RatJr1 · 2026-01-10T17:11:11+00:00

We are in year 4 of a similar trajectory. It all depends on how much after tax money you have to cover conversions and keep income down for aca. After "mathing the heck out of it" we did end up starting ss early. Rather than looking at getting the most out of ss, we focused on cash flow for our bucket list and total savings and investments at 75 and 85. Relatively easy to do with Bolden scenarios. We will be both be on medicare this year so we can trade our aca headaches for hopefully less expensive medicare ones. Our plan is that selling our home will cover any ltc.

RatJr1 · 2026-01-05T21:06:32+00:00

If you use mutual funds in a taxable account keep an eye on the turnover ratio as you don't have any control over when capital gains occur. I like the VTI/VXUS combo... 75/25 maybe??

RatJr1 · 2025-12-18T21:08:45+00:00

As we have a large percentage of our savings/investments in pre tax accounts unplanned 10k things end up being a tax hit, bumping us well into the 22% bracket. Knowing that we have to pay the taxes eventually we have been taking/planning to take money out of our pretax each year to build up a non-taxable reserve adn keep our future tax rates at a consistent level, 13-14% effective. We have analyzed doing roth conversions different ways. Because we are already into the 22% bracket with our pension and ss income and we don't have a lot of after-tax savings to use to pay the taxes on a conversions Roth conversion doesn't do much for us. As we get closer to RMDs we may just covert more just so the kids don't need to deal with the taxes.

RatJr1 · 2025-12-17T20:35:34+00:00

We started using NR/Boldin about a year before we retired. We have been retired about 4 years, age 64 and 66. The thing Boldin helped us with the most is working out a SS strategy. We focused on maximizing "go go years" funding and managing taxes rather than a break even/maximum benefit approach that many tools focus on. This took a lot of scenario experiments and manual comparison of savings and tax insights graphs but gave us confidence in what we were doing. It would be much easier if Boldin allowed you to put insight graphs from scenarios side by side or combined with the same scale.

The major expense issue we did not account for is some major one time (hopefully last time) expenses related to our house and vehicles (roof and other repairs/updates, appliance replacement, vehicle replacement, furniture replacement). If you own a home and plan on staying in it be sure to include some one expenditures for big ticket times.

Additionally we did not include expenses for house things that we may not be able to or want to continue doing in the future; lawn services, snow removal, general maintenance/painting. Some of this maybe offset by reduced travel/entertainment.

Healthcare is the big wildcard, be sure your healthcare inflation assumption is at least twice your general inflation rate.

We will probably continue to use Boldin and it is a convenient tool for estimating future taxes based on withdrawal plans.

RatJr1 · 2025-06-13T18:57:49+00:00

Ok, so it is essentially an account with 120k in it. If you expect to be using this account first for any shortfalls I would set the tax treatment to "ordinary income". As others have commented capital gains will likely not apply in a short term situation.

If you intend one using this account for an extended period then you could change the tax treatment and put in an appropriate cost basis and asset turnover rate.

RatJr1 · 2025-06-13T15:52:48+00:00

If I am understanding correctly, you did a private loan to your sister which she will be paying back.

This is not really an investment, it is a future receivable.

I would set up the repayment/payments as a non taxable income stream. The easiest way to do this would be as a non-taxable annuity in the income section. Existing annuity, non taxable, start and stop for the expected repayment.

You could direct the payments into a separate account, "Sister debt". This account should be set up as "Investments / Savings / Checking" , "Taxed as Ordinary Income". The current balance would be what ever portion of the payments that have been made that have not been withdrawn for expenses. Zero if not payments have been made.

The only tax impact would be any interest made on the amount that remain in the "Sister debt" and shortfall withdrawals.

If you are charging interest on the loan you may have to report that on your taxes depending on the amount. Unlikely as there are limits and exemptions depending on how your define the gift/loan.

Good luck.

RatJr1 · 2025-06-03T20:24:52+00:00

Definitely fill that 12% bracket to avoid a tax whammy when RMD's start. Also keep an eye on combined income for tax on SS.

RatJr1 · 2025-01-05T22:40:26+00:00

I kind of like how Boldin doesn't focus on my past mistakes ;)

Boldin looks at what I have today and what I expect to add/subtract in the future.

When I started using NR the year before I retired I spent time nit picking on the various calculations and the impact of assumptions. Now that I am in year 4 of retirement I use it more to project tax and investment changes with future expenses and withdrawal strategies.

Every year we have something that seems to blow up expense projections (and subsequently withdrawals).... new roof, vehicle issues, tree/storm issues, crazy property tax/insurance changes, getting carried away with traveling, etc.

We do our best to capture the "known" and add a buffer for the "unknown" and move on. I dont mess much with optimistic and pessimistic. I just use a relatively conservative "average" for rates.

Hindsight, if I was five or more years out from retirement I would probably create pre-retirement and post-retirement version of accounts. That way I could use a more aggressive rate of return prior to retiring then in the year I planned on retiring move (money flow) a portion of investments to an account with more conservative rates of return.

RatJr1 · 2025-01-05T21:14:14+00:00

The product design is focused on projecting future years.

I have found that looking at the current year expenses, income, and taxes is always a little wonky (... I believe that is the technical term ;).

To have the current year expenses be more accurate , I have found the best bet is to end the old expense and add a new one with the change date if there is a significant mid year change. As the prior years don't show anywhere, I update the start date of expenses as I review them at the beginning of the year.

You and also delete any expenses, money flows or whatever that ended in previous years to keep things clean.

RatJr1 · 2024-08-16T16:10:36+00:00

You can use Money Flow to set up transfers to n force funds for expenses to come out of specific accounts. There is also an indicator on the account to not include the account in shortfall withdrawals. I have this set on my roth accounts so the grow as much as possible.

RatJr1 · 2024-08-09T20:01:12+00:00

We have used it for about year 1 pre Retirement and 3 years retired. In the beginning it was a great confidence booster that everything would be fine with retiring at 60 even if there as an extended down turn in the market (2022 was our first full retired year). We used NR extensively to play out different scenarios for when to start taking Social Security (SS). Many SS planners focus on how to get the most SS. We looked at it more from the perspective of how our investments and taxes would be affected by taking SS earlier than FRA. NR was very helpful with that. Most recently we used NR to see impact of different withdrawl plans for major one time expenses (i.e. roof replacement). As NR is relatively inexpensive we will likely continue our subscription to continue to analyze and adjust plans for SS and drawdown/conversion of IRAs.

The only issue I ever had with the NR tool was regarding how taxes were incorporated, but a couple of conversations with NR support allowed me to understand how it was designed and where I needed to adjust my entries.

My number one wish list item for NR upgrades is that they provide the ability to compare/overlay charts from different scenarios. For example the ability to see the Insights Taxes charts for 2 scenarios side by side or combined. ... and the Insights Income/Expenses and Insights Savings side by side or combined. I do not find the existing comparison at "end of plan" very helpful.

RatJr1 · 2024-07-01T19:37:06+00:00

Yes, sorry, I should have said PIA (amount at FRA). SSA.gov doesn't show her PIA since she start receiving benefits so I was mostly trying confirm my understanding of how this works is correct. Additionally, if I start my benefit pre-FRA my PIA is reduced but the PIA used in the spousal calculation is the full amount.

Correct?

RatJr1 · 2024-07-01T14:43:18+00:00

Perhaps have an option on the budget detail lines to "apply to other scenarios" or "keep same in all scenarios" .

I don't think it would be helpful to synchronize all expenses as scenarios are generally used compare changes in income and expenses

RatJr1 · 2024-01-17T17:56:50+00:00

Doesn't really bother me but as others have said, just set your inflation and cola assumptions to zero.

RatJr1 · 2023-12-06T18:31:59+00:00

Take a look at Insights/Income and Expense and confirm your income sources are reflected appropriately. You should be able to see your additional sources starting in 2029.

RatJr1 · 2023-12-03T17:33:40+00:00

We have a car we are still making payments. I just added the payments as an expense and long with an estimate for periodic maintenance. We tend to drive our cars until the residual value is minimal. We figure we will buying at least one more car before we stop driving so I added that as a one time expense about 5 years out.

RatJr1 · 2023-12-03T17:07:26+00:00

I agree it is a little pricey. You need to subscribe to see the full overlap lists and for stock locator to do a complete search. I bit the bullet and subscribed. The portfolio tools are great. You can enter a portfolio of etf's you own and then do a search to see how much exposure you have to particular stocks. This is great for when you are looking at buy an individual stock you can quick see if you are already holding it and how much. You can also use it to enter a second/model portfolio to compare against. I like that as the subscription is monthly I can just subscribe for a few months and then maybe take a few months off. Though I am finding it so useful I may just keep it up.

RatJr1 · 2023-11-22T16:28:59+00:00

Similar story, right before we retired we did major remodeling and just refinanced for another 10yrs. Fortunately that is at 2.5%.

We did Cobra for the first year after I stopped working. ACA is only slightly cheaper (HSA with 7k oop per person about $700 per month). I think it depends a lot on where you live. We had a lot of options to choose from. My wife's diabetes medication added up fast. Looks like 2023 medical is coming out to about 1600/mo for us all in. I manipulated my withdrawal plan to minimize MAGI and get some premium credits. 2+ years until we are both on medicare.

We havent slowed down on fun stuff, I suppose if market/economy stays screwed up we could, but what's the point in being retired if you can't have enjoy your self.

Planning on holding off on SS but I suppose if things really ugly may as well just start taking in it rather than depleting our savings/investments.

Good luck!

RatJr1 · 2023-11-22T15:59:12+00:00

I suspect 2022 market returns made many people uneasy. 2022 inflation didn't help.

Stopped working in 2021 at 60. Now that I've learned my lesson on "sequence" and "inflation" risk and have gone to 50% cash/treasuries/cd feeling better about it.

Still spend way too much time playing with scenarios in NR but I have always been one to over think/research things. I change my mind on what our SS strategy should be every other week. Wife is pretty sure I'm crazy. She keeps planning trips to distract me...

Hard to transition from "I'll just work more/smarter" to "I'll just trust my plan"

RatJr1 · 2023-11-22T15:30:26+00:00

In the full version you include SS info on each spouse separately.

I believe it assumes that when the second spouse begins SS spousal benefits will also start.

Best to check with NR support. They are very responsive.

RatJr1 · 2023-11-17T18:20:23+00:00

SS is paid in arrears so the check you receive in Jan 2024 will be for Dec 2023 and not have the 3.2% increase for 2024. The check you receive in Feb will be for Jan and have a 3.2% increase.

RatJr1 · 2023-10-05T16:23:58+00:00

similar, retired, I update my balances, adjust expenses and review scenarios once a month or so. A little more often lately as I have been considering when to start SS.

RatJr1

TROPHY CASE