Seeking feedback on a retirement income tool

waveyjane

Hi all! 

I'm doing some research on an online tool designed to help you manage your income in retirement. It would be great to get your opinions on it! 

This is just an idea of mine and not (yet) commercial - indeed it might even turn into a free tool. So I'm afraid I can't pay you for your time. But if you're OK with that, read on...

Here's the general idea:
Let's say I've got some investments (a mixture of funds, shares, bonds, cash, Bitcoin(!) whatever, in both pensions and ISAs) that I intend to live off in retirement. How do I make sure they won't run out? I could either pay an IFA to tell me how, or read up on safe withdrawal strategies and do it myself.

OK great. Let's assume in both cases I understand that:
a) I have enough to last me with my assumed outgoings (that is, I've used a tool like FIRECalc to find out, or taken some advice from an IFA)

b) I should do certain things to ensure that it lasts (eg withdraw from things that are doing well, re-balance to maintain diversity, monitor inflation etc.)

So - how do I actually do that so that I know how much to sell down each month / quarter / year whatever? I could pay an IFA for the rest of my life to tell me each time, but that's pricey! A DIY route with a spreadsheet with access to how each investment is performing would seem pretty fiddly... Or I could just trust to my "judgement". Hmm.

But what about an online tool specifically designed to tell me what to do with my investments, according to an accepted withdrawal strategy designed to mitigate "sequence risk" and whatnot? I set it up, then log in around "pay day", and the system will tell me what to do and how I'm tracking. I go off and do the necessary selling/buying, then get on with my jet skiing and golf.

I can show you a mock-up of the tool as it's currently envisaged. We can do it over a remote screen sharing system (Zoom), so if you have a webcam and/or mic headset thing it should be fairly easy.

If anyone's interested, send me a private message, or feel free to ask me any questions here.

Thanks!

Thrugelmir

waveyjane said:

But what about an online tool specifically designed to tell me what to do with my investments, according to an accepted withdrawal strategy designed to mitigate "sequence risk" and whatnot? I set it up, then log in around "pay day", and the system will tell me what to do and how I'm tracking. I go off and do the necessary selling/buying, then get on with my jet skiing and golf.

Where's the data coming from on which the investment decisions are based? Data sets are very expensive to buy.  

waveyjane

Thrugelmir said:
Where's the data coming from on which the investment decisions are based? Data sets are very expensive to buy.  

Indeed - that is as yet an unsolved problem (other than the fact that that the data is at least available!)

waveyjane

Anyone interested? (and apologies for bumping this thread)