Hello

I have an inheritance included in incomes as a non-taxable income. I arbitrarialy picked a date of May 1, 2027.

After running the time machine and optimizations, when I look at 2027, the sources of income only include the inheritance and no withdrawels or income from any other accounts.

Would it not be correct for the time maching to calculate the first 4 months of the year to have income and/or withdrawels from my other sources?

The TIME MACHINE mostly has a resolution of one year. A monthly resolution would be more accurate, but would also slow it down quite a bit.

Interesting. If I add a withdrawal (or 4) for the first 4 months of 2027, will force the time machine to factor that in?

Yes, it will if you force the withdrawal.

So I forced the withdrawel of 4 months of expenses proior to receving the inheritance, however, when I run the TM and Optimziation, MRA created a "Gifts" expense in the same year which equals the amount withdrawn. Of course, I would rather have that re-directed into one of our accounts. I guess the net of all this, is that it is probably okay just to leave it as it originally was, and then adjust on the fly, as obviosyly we have no idea when and the exact amount of the inheritance.

Maybe we do make it a little too easy to overthink these things :)

Remember the TIME MACHINE makes deposits and withdrawals from your accounts as you order them, but it will also make sure that at the end of the year, after all that you told it to do with your INCOMEs, EXPENSEs, SAVINGs, etc.,  and after taxes, that it will deposit any excess or withdraw any deficit to/from your accounts. See the video on how the TIME MACHINE works

I said it has a one-year resolution because it checks that the cash flow works only once a year, not every month or day.

In some years where you have an excess, you may need money before your windfall and possibly you could have invested in your accounts earlier. In other years when you have a deficit, you would need to withdraw earlier. So it's a little off in the amount of growth in your accounts for those months compared to if you were actually investing every penny you could every day.

I definitely fall into the overthinker category, and I have an affinity for details. Both served me well in my career as a Solutions Architect/Project Manager, however I also learned one must also have the ability to adjust and adapt on the fly, as we cannot account for every possible scenario.

So I am reminded that is important to have a solid base plan in place, but also important to not get too caught up in the weeds as the plan unfolds.

I do appreciate all your feedback and explanations!

Thanks

Dan

Very well said @Runner4Life