Spending plan for retirees
The spending plan as normally configured is a perfect match for working age folks who have income and expenses. But as someone who's semi-retired, some of the money I use to pay my bills just comes out of savings. Can I configure "Income" in the Spending plan to just be a fixed amount or do I need to recategorize some transfers as income (which seems a bit confusing). Or is the spending plan just not a good match for my situation?
Long time Mint user jumping into Simplifi-world!
Best Answer
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I have found Simplifi to be an excellent tool to keep track of my finances as a retiree and the Spending Plan is indeed my favorite part of this app.
Simplifi added user configurability to transfers and incorporated a transfers and credit card payment section into the Spending plan earlier this year. This gives you the ability to configure your "income" transfers so that the receiving side is included in the spending plan. By doing this your transfers from your savings to whatever account you use for your normal monthly spending will be included in your Spending Plan but not in the "Income" section. It will show up in the Transfer section and will be added to the bottom line for the whole "Income after bills and savings" section.
I make one transfer/month out of my retirement accounts into my main checking account. This is an automatic transfer handled by my financial advisors the amount determined annually in consultation. If you make multiple transfers in the course of the month, each one will need to be configured to be included in the Spending Plan.
These support articles go into all this in more detail:
As @Flopbot said, I like the Simplifi Spending Plan and again, find it to work quite satisfactorily for a retiree.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer3
Answers
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Hang tough - you'll be joining the fun soon! :)
Thanks guys for your guidance.
Long time Mint user jumping into Simplifi-world!
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I'm retired also, and I'm off the Mint boat. I make money from my investments, but it really can't be tracked as income. I'v played quite a bit with the Spending plan, but personally I don't see allot of utility for it in my particular case. First, once a month is too granular, I can have large expenses one month and very little the next. If I could configure it for an entire year, or have rollover which is widely requested, then I could probably do more with it. I wish "Bills" and "Subscriptions" where not included so that I could add them in "Planned Spending" so that I could get a nice graph of progress in these categories on my dashboard. If "Spending Plan" did have rollover than, for me, Danny's suggestion of using transfers would work out well. However, I've have had a lot of trouble with recurring transfers, a topic for another post.
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First, once a month is too granular, I can have large expenses one month and very little the next.
Please vote for my smoothing request!
Long time Mint user jumping into Simplifi-world!
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Simplifi development team is working on adding a rollover feature to the Spending pPlan that hopefully “smooth out” the non-monthly expenses you mention. This has been an ongoing request from the users since the launch of Simplifi. (As one example see this long thread about feedback on the spending plan.)
As far as the Spending Plan goes, you must have some monthly regularly recurring income, and “fixed” and “flexible” expenses. These types of normal everyday expenses are where the Spending Plan excels.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer1
