Quick Easy Fixes for the 10 Most Common Errors Users Make When Building a Retirement Plan in the Boldin Planner
The Boldin Retirement Planner is an award winning tool that puts the power of sophisticated financial planning into your own hands. While the tool strives for simplicity, accurate and reliable planning requires varying degrees of complexity.
Here are common planning errors that Boldin Coaches find in people’s plans. And, tips for how to fix these problems.
1 Unaware of the Active Assumptions in the Plan
The Boldin planner allows you to view forecasts through a variety of different lenses. Pro Tip: Rely on the top menu toggles to select your preferred lens:
Today's Dollars/Future Dollars Forecast, Optimistic, Average or Pessimistic Forecast, Withdrawal Strategy and Budgeter.
2 Overlooking the Retirement Age Feature
When to retire is one of the most important and compelling questions related to retirement plans. Boldin makes it easy to change your retirement age and related items such as work stop age at the click of a button. Learn more here.
3 Not leveraging Excess Income to its fullest potential
Another common error found in user plans is that Excess Income is saved to the Default Account, which has a rate of return of 0%. Learn more here.
We also have a new feature which allows users to change the amount of Excess Income saved through their lifespan.
4 Wrong Retirement Account Type
The most common error our coaches found was that users had selected the wrong account type, limiting the contributions captured in their savings accounts.
PRO TIPS: Make sure to select 401k, 403b or 457b if you have an employer sponsored retirement plan. This will ensure that the planner captures contributions up to the 2025 limits of $23,500 or $31,000 for savers over 50.
5 Contributions are Not Fully Captured
Income linked contributions the 2025 limits will not be captured and must be entered in Money Flows as Standard Contributions. Learn more here and see a demonstration here.
6 After-Tax Accounts Have the Wrong Tax Treatment
Ordinary Income Tax Treatment
is the best option if you have a checking account, savings account, or a brokerage account holding bonds. Any assets subject to ordinary income tax or non qualified dividends should be entered utilizing the Ordinary Income tax treatment.
Capital Gains Tax Treatment
is the best option if you have a brokerage account stock and equity shares, mutual funds, and ETFs. Any assets subject to capital tax should be entered utilizing the Capital Gains tax treatment.
7 After-Tax Accounts are Missing Cost Basis or Have a High Turnover Rate
Learn more here.
8 Home and Real Estate
Mortgage payment includes property taxes and home insurance under Home and Real Estate -> Primary Residence (where property taxes and home insurance should be entered as Recurring Expenses instead).
9 No Inflationary Adjustment on One Time Expenses and Disbursements
The user must adjust One Time Expenses and Disbursements for inflation. These items are not subject to the inflation rate in your Assumptions and must be entered in Future Dollars.
10 Unfunded One Time Expenses and Disbursements
The user must select source accounts with sufficient funds for future expenses. One Time Expenses and Disbursements are not fully funded due to insufficient funds in the designated funding account. If your expenses are unfunded you will receive a coach alert, but the software will not fund the expense from another source.
PRO TIP: Enter One Time Expenses in your recurring expenses with the same start and stop date. When you do this they will be subject to the inflation rate in your Assumptions and funded in accordance with your Withdrawal Strategy and Withdrawal Order.