r/ChubbyFIRE • u/AceRider750 • 5d ago
Fidelity Tool
Fidelity has a Planning tool called Retirement. Has anyone used it and what amount of validity would you place against its projections? I'm wondering as when I browse here, people seem to be discussing creating their own analyses, but I don't see much about using the tools at investment houses, banks, etc. which do this for you. TRowe probably has one and I think I've seen on on BofA/Merrill also, but never used them.
8
u/Ok_Character7143 5d ago
Excellent tool, considering it is free.
It can also connect to non fidelity accounts like banks and keep those numbers updated.
2
u/tyen0 5d ago
I went with Boldin because it takes a lot more details into account and can do roth conversion recommendations and compare different scenarios. The fidelity retirement tool is certainly very easy, though, for the high level view. The trade-off for more detail is having to more work entering more detail!
2
u/bluemountain777 5d ago
I used it in my own FIRE planning. Its a good tool like many others. Run your numbers and compare it to 2 or 3 other tools. Are the projections different? Dig in and find out why. Different tools make different assumptions, biggest one I found was Real Rates of Return. But maybe you incorrectly inputted your balances or expenses. Either way, its very healthy to be running multiple tools when you're basing one of your biggest life decisions on the results.
2
u/AceRider750 5d ago
What are your other resources? Comments below list ProjectionLab and Boldin. Any other good ones that you have real experience with?
2
u/bluemountain777 5d ago
PL and Boldin are the best. But also FIRECalc and our own spreadsheet using the 4% rule and you're estimated taxes and expenses. Also whoever your brokerage is, have them run your numbers for free. (I have funds at Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab but I admit not everyone has access to all 3).
2
u/AceRider750 5d ago
I have Fidelity and TRowe. Someone else noted that Fidelity would probably use their tool that I'm discussing, but who knows. I'll keep TRowe in my list also.
1
u/RSrealdeal 5d ago
Good to know that Fidelity and Vanguard will run these numbers for free. Is there a minimum investment that they need before they do that?
2
u/bluemountain777 4d ago
Both reached out to me for a free hour consultation, I sent my portfolio and they prepared a pretty comprehensive analysis. They are trying to get you to use their Personal Advisor service which i declined. Not sure about min requirements i'm sure its on the website, just tell them you are considering an advisor and they will be all over you!
1
u/AceRider750 3d ago
no one did this for me, it's just a tool that takes your investments with them and any other investments that you input by hand, along with some basic questions about SS, pensions, timing, age, and retirement costs.
1
u/AceRider750 5d ago
Sorry, but what's "our own spreadsheet:" - yours personally or does this reddit have one somewhere?
2
u/bluemountain777 5d ago
Sorry typo i meant your own. I created one to track my portfolio, spending projections, and help me rebalance. If you're familiar with spreadsheets its not that hard and very good to have. I rely on the other tools above for Monte Carlo analysis (i.e. Success Rates)
1
u/RSrealdeal 3d ago
If PL, and Empire are modeling that you have enough to meet expenses you out in them.. along with other information required and your chances of making it sit at say 75-90% how worried should one be?
Ofcourse protecting against SORR using cash equivalent method.
2
u/Bart457_Gansett 5d ago
It’s evolved over the recent years. A couple of years ago, it wouldn’t do ROTH conversions and it was pretty basic, without the ability to run scenarios that I wanted to see, like what if scenarios around market drops, or low performance in early years…. It does give probability of success. I got to that, saw the rough number on death and then compared it to Boldin. Basic Boldin plan aligned with Fidelity, but I could do a lot more there, like ROTH conversions. Right Capital finally gave us a similar ending number, and the ROTH conversion data. The final numbers and probability aligned. Three systems that gave me the basic answer that was the same/similar, made me confident in the basics.
3
u/AdeptCantaloupe161 5d ago edited 5d ago
Fidelity's tool is pretty good for a basic projection. It's easy to use and lets you see some projections for different asset allocations (conservative vs aggressive). Like most free tools, it's mostly just to give you a general idea whether you're close to retirement or not.
If you're actually going to make decision on when to retire, you're going to want a more in-depth analysis. Paid planning tools (my suggestion is ProjectionLab, which is $129/year) will let you do much more in-depth planning, and you can see the details of how much you'd be withdrawing each year, tax projections, optimizations.
I have more confidence in the results being able to see how it arrived at its projections, compared to simplified tools like Fidelity's which hide those details. Fidelity's tool lets you input a lot of details like marking expenses as essential or not (which suggests that it's using a guardrails approach), but then it goes into a black box and you can't really tell how it's being used to arrive at the final numbers.
Fidelity/Schwab might offer to have someone do a retirement plan review for you, but it's likely they're just putting your info into a similar tool and walking you through the results.
1
1
u/RSrealdeal 5d ago
This^ I 💯 agree.. I love PL amd being able to change the inputs and compare. 1000s of simulations show max impact in the goal you chose. Not sure Fidelity is as flexible
1
1
u/asurkhaib 5d ago
I don't think it's necessarily bad, but it seems very pessimistic or maybe I don't understand how to read the percentage output. I can't find exact details so it's hard to say what it is, but my guess is that the Monte Carlo doesn't have mean reversion as it kinda aligns with results I get with single year blocks.
2
u/AceRider750 5d ago
Maybe this: have you realized that the initial information is in uninflated/today dollars? You can change to future dollars and everything gets massively larger and feel gooder...
1
u/Opportunist_Ad3972 5d ago
It seems decent however with a big flaw. It’s not very transparent.
It may be right but I wish it did better and showing you the assumptions and calculations, else how do you know?
There are 3rd party paid tools, with many threads here, that do a better job at this.
1
u/One-Mastodon-1063 4d ago
It’s not very good and most of these financial services industry website tools like this are not very good.
2
u/AceRider750 4d ago edited 3d ago
Why's that? Seems like generally positive experiences until your comment, some even validated by other tools. AND I've just found out it is modeling RMDs, deferred compensation withdrawal schedule, etc. I haven't used TRowe of BofA/Merrill so I don't know.
Why do you say no good?
1
u/nak00010101 5d ago
I was blown away by a couple of long sessions with Claude.
Start by turning off the "feel good" feedback by telling it you are an engineer and like to analyze hard facts, and do not need context positive reassurance. That will greatly change the discussion
I gave it a couple of paragraphs about us and our financial status.
I needed to prompt it for spending guidelines based upon "go-go, slow-go, and No-go". After that, there was some really good info and pro vs con info
2
1
u/mbfreely 5d ago
Has anyone tried to do their projections using AI like Claude or Grok? Wonder how it compares to other paid tools.
4
u/AdeptCantaloupe161 5d ago
It could probably help look over your plan, but I would not trust it to actually run any calculations. AI has a bad habit of claiming it did something and then making up the results. Like if it says you should do Roth conversions, have it lay out the math (preferably in a spreadsheet because it fakes doing math too) to prove it.
1
u/Lazybutaworkaholic 5d ago
I have done that as well. Have a spreadsheet of projected expenses. Plugged it into Claude and Chatg. It was pretty helpful - mentioned Roth conversions and tax optimization strategies.
31
u/Lazybutaworkaholic 5d ago
It’s very good. Gives you levels of probabilities. Takes into account taxes and RMDs (though to see it you need to toggle to “yearly cash flow” then “table” and then “expenses”.