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Proportional Withdrawals

This video provides an overview of the Money Flows section and demonstrates how to customize withdrawals

Written by Nancy Gates

One of the most powerful — and underused — tools in Boldin is the ability to customize your withdrawal order. By default, Boldin follows a tax-efficient sequence, but your situation may call for a more tailored approach. In this video, we'll walk through two practical use cases: setting up proportional withdrawals that blend taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts, and using custom ordering to actively manage which tax bracket you land in each year.

Strategy 1: Use a Roth Conversion Explorer and Boldin AI to customize your withdrawal strategy.

Fill your low tax brackets early and fund your spending tax-efficiently, in three steps.

By default, the Planner spends your taxable accounts first and leaves your tax-deferred accounts (401(k), traditional IRA) for later. For many early retirees, that means very low taxable income in the early years and much higher brackets later, once Social Security and required minimum distributions (RMDs) begin.

This hack uses the Roth Conversion Explorer to find how much income you can add each year while staying in your target bracket. Then Boldin AI redirects that money to a cash account you can spend from, instead of a Roth account.

Before you start

  • Make sure your plan includes a tax-deferred account, such as a 401(k) or traditional IRA, and a taxable brokerage account.

  • Add a cash account (such as checking or savings) if you don’t have one. The money will land here.

Step 1: Run the Roth Conversion Explorer

  1. Go to Explorers > Roth Conversion Explorer.

  2. Choose a strategy, then set your tax bracket (for example, 12%), how you’ll pay the tax, and the time period.

  3. Press See my optimized plan.

The Explorer shows how much you can convert each year to fill your chosen bracket.

Step 2: Apply the conversions

Press Apply to Scenario. Boldin takes you to Money Flows, where you’ll see the conversions it created.

Step 3: Ask Boldin AI to change the destination

Open Boldin AI and ask it to send the conversions to your cash account instead of your Roth account. For example: “Change the destination of my Roth conversions to my cash account.”

Boldin AI shows you the proposed changes. Nothing is saved until you click Apply.

Your 401(k) now funds your cash account each year, up to the top of your chosen bracket. The Planner covers the rest of your spending from that account or the next one in your withdrawal order, so you'll want that to be another taxable account. The result is filling low tax brackets to fund spending now, rather than paying higher rates later.

See the difference

Compare your plans in Insights:

Check Insights > Taxes > Net Taxable Income by Federal Tax Bracket to see your income fill the bracket you chose.

Strategy 2: Customize your withdrawal strategy with Boldin AI 🤖

Want to try a custom withdrawal strategy in your own plan? Copy this prompt into Boldin AI. Fill in the brackets with your own details.

Help me customize my withdrawal strategy from age [X] to age [Y].

My goal is [pick one]:

  • Proportional withdrawals: blend withdrawals from my taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts each year instead of draining one account at a time

  • Tax bracket management: withdraw from my tax-deferred accounts each year until I reach the top of the [12% / 22% / 24%] federal tax bracket, after counting my other taxable income.

  1. Create a retirement paycheck account. Put it first in my withdrawal order.

  2. Use these accounts as sources:

    1. [Account 1]

    2. [Account 2]

    3. [Account 3]

  3. Suggest the transfers I should add in Money Flows. For each one, include:

    1. from account

    2. to account

    3. annual amount

    4. start age

    5. stop age

  4. Keep the total close to my yearly expenses so the Planner doesn't have to fill gaps from my withdrawal order. Transfers are fixed amounts, so if my balances shift a lot, break them into shorter age ranges.

  5. Also tell me if I should change my withdrawal order for the accounts not covered by transfers.

Show a year-by-year table with:

- Age and year

- Amount from each account

- Any shortfall withdrawals, and which account they came from

- Total taxable income

- Highest federal tax bracket reached

Show my Chance of Success, portfolio value at my longevity age, lifetime taxes and lifetime effective tax rate. Compare each one to my current plan.

Looking for more flexibility?

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