Has anyone used Income Strategy website/software?

[Phil DeMuth]

ETF Math Guy's Retirement Income Planner would be a great alternative to Income Strategy.

He is a well-respected researcher in the field and his software gets better every quarter.

Like all of these programs, there is a learning curve but it's well worth the investment of your time.

https://apps.etfmathguy.com/calc

[ichee_marone]

Ran through this but it appears the minimum retirement age is 60, so it not useful to us (both aged 56). I-ORP allows this.

[ncbill]

Ran through this but it appears the minimum retirement age is 60, so it not useful to us (both aged 56). I-ORP allows this.

Yep, I contacted them about that and they refuse to model ages lower than age 60.

[alife]

Thank you for the suggestions on alternatives to the Income Strategy software. I am also a fan of Pralana Retirement Calculator.

One difference between PRC and Income Strategy is that IS allows for simultaneous withdrawals from different account types (e.g., tax deferred, Roth, regular investment) in a given year or years to maximize the present value of lifetime income (or whatever objective is "driving" each program). From what I understand and see, PRC optimizes the order in which these accounts should be drawn down, but it doesn't explicitly optimize simultaneous withdrawals from different account types. Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks again.

[Sammmy]

Greetings,

Income Strategy is no longer available, another company bought it and is moving in a different direction.

I had found it useful at a reasonable cost to indidividual investors.

Sammmy

[CRTR]

Went to IncomeStrategy.com today to see if they have improved the site. I discovered it's down . . . . forever! RetireeInc was purchased by T Rowe Price and Incomestrategy.com was rebranded to www.incomesolver.com. They also raised the individual subscription cost from $240/year to . . . $1900/year! Boom!!!

Guess I won't be using that service again!

[busdriver]

Went to IncomeStrategy.com today to see if they have improved the site. I discovered it's down . . . . forever! RetireeInc was purchased by T Rowe Price and Incomestrategy.com was rebranded to www.incomesolver.com. They also raised the individual subscription cost from $240/year to . . . $1900/year! Boom!!!

Guess I won't be using that service again!

Income Strategy was not rebranded. Income Solver pre-dated Income Strategy and has always been for CFP's and like to use for their clients, hence the high price.

Income Strategy was a less sophisticated version designed for single DIY users. As I suspected, It appears T Rowe Price has shelved Income Strategy. I hope they will re-launch it as it was certainly invaluable to me in constructing my retirement withdrawal and Roth conversion plan.

[lorneabramson]

ETF Math Guy's Retirement Income Planner would be a great alternative to Income Strategy.

He is a well-respected researcher in the field and his software gets better every quarter.

Like all of these programs, there is a learning curve but it's well worth the investment of your time.

https://apps.etfmathguy.com/calc

Has anyone else used ETF Math Guy’s Retirement Income Planner (per Phil’s recommendation),and if so, can you share your experience?

[RatDaddy]

Like many on this thread, I'm seeking an affordable/free calculator to help guide our decumulation strategy/sequence, since the death of Income Strategy for DIYers. I've spent some time on ETFMathGuy's website and watched the excellent webinar on The Financial Experts Network where ETFMathGuy demonstrates his calculator and addresses what it does/doesn't do. My current read of ETFMathGuy's website indicates that the following features are still not supported.

1. Does not analyze Roth conversions.
2. Does not address State income tax.
3. Does not address IRMAA costs for higher income levels.
4. Not sure how to model our plan to leave substantial % of portfolio to charity (ie: what's tax rate should be used in the model?)

I'd appreciate any input on this list. Is my understanding of the calculator accurate? Do you know of workarounds to address these features? Do you think it doesn't make any difference in determining the optimum decumulation WD sequence? Thx!

[Exchme]

Like many on this thread, I'm seeking an affordable/free calculator to help guide our decumulation strategy/sequence, since the death of Income Strategy for DIYers. I've spent some time on ETFMathGuy's website and watched the excellent webinar on The Financial Experts Network where ETFMathGuy demonstrates his calculator and addresses what it does/doesn't do. My current read of ETFMathGuy's website indicates that the following features are still not supported.

1. Does not analyze Roth conversions.
2. Does not address State income tax.
3. Does not address IRMAA costs for higher income levels.
4. Not sure how to model our plan to leave substantial % of portfolio to charity (ie: what's tax rate should be used in the model?)

I'd appreciate any input on this list. Is my understanding of the calculator accurate? Do you know of workarounds to address these features? Do you think it doesn't make any difference in determining the optimum decumulation WD sequence? Thx!

It's usually right to spend down taxable first. If you have enough in your t-IRA/401k to be an RMD headache, then also do Roth Conversions. For married folks, the larger earner should usually wait until age 70 to claim.

If you won't pay for software, the Bogleheads' Retiree Portfolio Model at the wiki is good. It does a good job from a federal tax standpoint and you can do Roth Conversion studies with some manual effort. It defaults to spending from taxable first, but you can manually test withdrawing amounts from your IRA or Roth early.

If you are willing to pay something, I recommend Pralana (pralanaretirementcalculator.com). It takes a crack at state taxes and has optimizers for which account to withdraw from first, Roth Conversions, SS claim age, along with a wide variety of withdrawal strategies and historical and Monte Carlo analyses. While you can manually test taking a little from your IRA, HSA or Roth while mostly withdrawing from taxable or some other combination, it does not automatically search those intermediate strategies. Typically you can spot whether those intermediate strategies make sense as they are limited to times like qualifying for ACA premium credits, where you may need to withdraw a little from your IRA to stay off Medicaid or take a little from your Roth to keep your ACA MAGI low.

[DecisionSciencesProf]

Here are some answers and workarounds.

1. Roth conversions are analyzed in the context of an optimal withdrawal strategy. So, they are now included, but weren’t as of the webinar recorded for the financial experts network.

2, 3. Increase after-tax income needs by amount expected for these additional “expenses”.

4. To leave a substantial amount to charity, use TDA funds exclusively. Discount backwards in time the amount to bequeath to a charity (whose tax rate is 0%) at the portfolios return rate. Then, subtract this from the current TDA amount.

I don’t think items 2,3,4 will have any effect in the optimal drawdown. Items 2 and 3 occur every year so can be offset by additional after-tax income needs. Item 4’s adjustment occurs only at the start of retirement.

Like many on this thread, I'm seeking an affordable/free calculator to help guide our decumulation strategy/sequence, since the death of Income Strategy for DIYers. I've spent some time on ETFMathGuy's website and watched the excellent webinar on The Financial Experts Network where ETFMathGuy demonstrates his calculator and addresses what it does/doesn't do. My current read of ETFMathGuy's website indicates that the following features are still not supported.

1. Does not analyze Roth conversions.
2. Does not address State income tax.
3. Does not address IRMAA costs for higher income levels.
4. Not sure how to model our plan to leave substantial % of portfolio to charity (ie: what's tax rate should be used in the model?)

I'd appreciate any input on this list. Is my understanding of the calculator accurate? Do you know of workarounds to address these features? Do you think it doesn't make any difference in determining the optimum decumulation WD sequence? Thx!

[DecisionSciencesProf]

The site has a separate app for retirees under 60 to generate retirement income from a taxable account. It uses simulation of either geometric Brownian motion or bootstrapping to model stock and bond prices to determine a probability distribution of account values until age 59 1/2, when penalties from early retirement account distributions go away.

Ran through this but it appears the minimum retirement age is 60, so it not useful to us (both aged 56). I-ORP allows this.

Yep, I contacted them about that and they refuse to model ages lower than age 60.