Retirement cashflow validation

tgon

I've agreed a retirement plan strategy with my IFA and implementing it now. To help my future financial planning, I've created a 10 year cashflow forecast with outgoings and incomes from various sources at the time they become available or desireable. I'm not a slave to it but it does give some measure of control and peace of mind.

What the spreadsheet lacks is validation from another source. I've tried RetireEasy, Age Corncern and a few other Excel spreadsheets but they're either buggy, too assumptive or inappropriate. (Most assume you're planning your retirement not already taken early retirement. Most struggle with a DB pension coming on stream later on.) Is the forum aware of any similar cashflow spreadsheets in the public domain that I might try and validate mine? Thanks in advance

AnotherJoe

Retireeasy allows you to model new streams of income (and even lump sums) coming in at different times amd also state your retirement date but suppose it doesn't deal with you having retired already ( I can't recall) why not simply model it by adding say one year to all dates so you retire a year from now ?

OldBeanz

I had some issues with RetireEasy and wrote to them. They came back with a work around. Email them, I am sure your issues would be surmountable.

edinburgher

Somewhat unimpressed with Retire Easy, didn't get past the first stage of data entry as I'm too young! :eek:

AnotherJoe

So add some years until you aren't.

tgon

Whilst RetireEasy has a large amount of relevant fields to populate, I find some of its data entry logic too restrictive or vague on dates and the outputs too generalised to satisfy my needs. I've emailed them with feedback a few times.

I'll keep looking...

edinburgher

AnotherJoe wrote: »

So add some years until you aren't.

I can't see the point in that, surely it will throw off state pension dates etc.? I appreciate that it's a free product, but such a rookie mistake by the developers doesn't fill me with confidence.

AnotherJoe

edinburgher wrote: »

I can't see the point in that, surely it will throw off state pension dates etc.? I appreciate that it's a free product, but such a rookie mistake by the developers doesn't fill me with confidence.

Not really. You'd just add (say) ten years to whatever dates it outputs if for sake of argument you are 20 and it doesn't start until age 30. AFAICR you specify when you will receive your various pensions so it doesn't automatically assume (for example) you'll get SP at any particular age.

However, having said that it seems to me to be premature to be calculating in detail your pension and dates of different payments coming in, for (say)40 years time. All you need to know for now if you are in your 20's, unless you are exceptionally well paid, is save as much as you can afford. Its exceptionally unlikely you'll be able to put too much into a pension when you start if you are in your 20's.

richbeth

I also have had issues with RetireEasy so would be very cautious about basing any decisions on the output. Amongst other things it included past contributions in the calculations of future value which over stated the forecasted value of my SIPP by £125k. This made things look a lot rosier than they actually were :-(

AnotherJoe

richbeth wrote: »

I also have had issues with RetireEasy so would be very cautious about basing any decisions on the output. Amongst other things it included past contributions in the calculations of future value which over stated the forecasted value of my SIPP by £125k. This made things look a lot rosier than they actually were :-(

Since you are solely responsible for the forecasted growth rates you can't blame RE for that ! indeed I don't even understand how you put in past contributions , you just tell it what your SIPP(s) and another pensions are worth now. You dont tell it what you put in in the past in order to achieve that current figure.

Seems like a PEBCAK issue.