Welcome! You can set contributions to accounts in the AUTOMATIC SAVINGS and WITHDRAWALS Tab. Select the account you want to deposit to. Then who will be making the deposit, if it's your employer, select "OTHER". For a one-time contribution, set the Start date to the same date as the End date. You can select those two dates to be linked to your retirement date, and if you later change it in your PROFILE to explore a different scenario, the deposit date will be changed automatically. Then enter the amount you expect to receive. The TIME MACHINE will make the deposit on the date requested, up to the contribution limits (for the type of account) it calculates for you at the time. There's a Help for this page where you can read all the details on entering AUTOMATIC SAVINGS and WITHDRAWALS.

Traditionally, financial planning software does not consider individual investments, only accounts with portfolios that the planner sets to a certain asset allocation (say 60% stocks/ 40% bonds). Often multiple accounts of the same taxable type are also lumped together as one. The exact portfolio allocation set for those accounts is based on the advisor's perceived risk for the different asset classes (which is presumed to be proportional to their expected return), to match their perceived risk tolerance of the client (usually based on age and other factors). You can use the MoneyReady App that way too.

Yes it's quite versatile. Usually, people import their accounts from Wealthica, the asset allocation of the investments is automatically set with information from Funddata at that point. Then they set the expected longer-term rates of return with the "Change all investment rates of return at once" button if there are many investments to go through and then adjust individual investments if they want. Those rates are used in the TIME MACHINE and our own rebalancing tool.

I have been thinking on how to make this even easier and versatile. The first would be to ask for the long-term expected rates before you link Wealthica the first time, save those rates, and use that to set the rates on the first import (and subsequent imports if new investments). A second enhancement would be to add more asset classes for the rates, particularly to consider geography in the "Change all investment rates of return at once" button. I'm surprised that hasn't been requested yet.

Coming up with individual long term expected returns (Capital appreciation growth rate) for each individual holding is virtually impossible.

Yet advisors do it all the time :).  Use their guidelines https://www.moneyreadyapp.ca/forum/topic/128-2023-projection-assumption-guidelines or your own judgement.

The same is true for the dividend yields. They can change too in the unpredictable ways of the market. If you want a stock to have a specific dividend yield, just enter it. The tool to set all rates at once is just used when you use it to set the rates, you can then modify exceptions as needed. Realise the rates set are for all time going forward in the TIME MACHINE unless you change them for future dates in RATES/YIELDS/CURRENCIES.

Yes, we can certainly use Wealthica to update your investment values. But those updates do not affect the expected rates of return you entered for those investments. Wealthica does not provide us with rates for dividends or other distributions. We have distribution information for tickers from Funddata, so we show you those where appropriate so you can use that information to guide you. However, we do not assume past rates of return will apply in the future, and we want you to enter your long-term expected rates yourself.

The MoneyReady App bridges the gap between short-term portfolio management and long-term financial planning by allowing you to manage your current portfolio while realising that your current portfolio will probably change in the future. The TIME MACHINE projections use the rates set for your current investments assuming they will be replaced with similar investments. So think long term for the rates you set.

Yes, easy and flexible is what we aim for. Thanks.

On a 100% fixed-income investment, it will apply that global expected yield you enter for fixed-income in the income yield for that investment. It will override your entries. If you don't want the globals you set applied to some specific investments, you can still change the yields for any investment you choose and set them to what you want afterwards.

Setting up Portfolios instead of detailing every investment is fine. That's why we have that capability. Entering investments with Wealthica is a convenience we offer for ease of entry, and as it allows you to keep the values of your investments and accounts always updated. If you're not a Wealthica user, you can also enter them manually with a stock or mutual-fund ticker and we'll use Funddata market data to keep them updated and track distributions (you just have to update any trades you make). Although we show you the past year performance in the tool-tip, that is just for your information, and I don't recommend using short-term returns for the long-term of the TIME MACHINE.

We do allow you to set individual expected rates of return for every investment. You can even change them to apply different rates in the future. This is for maximum flexibility.

But you can set all your expected rates of return at once which makes it very fast and easy. There's a button to "Change all investment rates of return at once" below your table of ACCOUNTS. Click on that and you can set your expected yields for capital gains, dividends, fixed-income and cash. The tool will consider the asset-allocation of every investment in every account to determine its rates of return for you. For investments with a stock or mutual fund ticker (entered with Wealthica or Funddata), we know the asset allocation from the Funddata market data and use that default unless you've changed it. For a portfolio investment, you will have entered its asset allocation

focusedGranola0 wrote:

Confirmed everything is ok. Somehow, I must have set something differently along the way. I started over the defined benefit pension income and bridge benefit, entered all the values again and presto! Things are adding up.

Great to hear!

Considering the complexity of all of this, I'm pretty amazed at what you've built and I'm very grateful it's available to anyone.

Merci!

De rien. I'll let you figure it out, but just a thought on what you said. A normal Salary contributes to CPP, a Defined Benefit Pension does not. The CPP amount you'll get depends on how much and for how long you contribute to the plan.

Yes, the rules vary by province, but there is currently no "official" way to do unlock a LIRA in the App. It's been a feature request for a long time. The unofficial way we currently deal with it, is by allowing the TIME MACHINE  to make withdrawals from LIRAs after 65. Essentially it assumes that you have already done some sort of conversion. It still only allows withdrawals up to the maximum amount for a LIF though (that depends on age and province), so it probably won't allow a 50% withdrawal.

For projections it doesn't matter whether the money stays in the LIRA account or put in the RRSP, unless you plan to invest completely differently with different expected returns for those two accounts, or if you plan to make large withdrawals beyond the required minimum withdrawals. Those are uncommon circumstances, so that is why there has not been too much motivation on my part to implement an "official" way. It would bring a lot of complication, as I said the rules vary, it would require additional inputs from users, and if it requires creating an RRSP account that hasn't been entered yet, could also complicate the output. That said, for you or anybody else reading this, you can comment here or on the forum/topic/98-partial-unlocking-of-lira-lif in the feature requests forum and let me know how you would use that feature.

When a DB pension plan says it works with CPP, that is to indicate that if you start taking the DB pension earlier than 65, the pension provides a bridge-benefit that is meant to be a CPP-like benefit untill age 65 (when CPP is presumed to actually start). There is actually no synchronization or even communication with CPP. You can start CPP any age from 60 to 70 whenever you start collecting DB pension benefits, and the DB will not affect CPP payments in any way (only when you stop contributing to CPP affects it). If you delay CPP past 65, the CPP amount is increased, and you will see that in the TIME MACHINE results. We use a slightly greyer font to indicate amounts owned by the Spouse in the TIME TABLE, it doesn't mean anything else. I suppose that is an unfortunate use of colour, I'll see if I can change it.

BTW In the MoneyReady App you can enter a bridge pension, as a separate INCOME entry.

Yes. You are reffering to the Pension Adjustment (PA) which is a applied for both private and public defined-benefit pension plans and reduces the RRSP contribution limit. The PA calculation depends on the specifics on the pension plan. Your pension formula determines what is called the accrued benefit that determines the PA. You can ask your pension provider for what that is. For most public pensions, it is 2% (the max), and we ask you for that when you enter or edit a pension income. You must  make sure to click Submit on the the Add/Edit income form, and if the income is a DB Pension it will then ask you for specifics on that pension including:

Percent of salary accrued benefit per year, usually close to 2 (percent), check your pension formula

If you don't know, enter 2. The TIME MACHINE does calculate the PA given that and reduces the contribution room automatically.

That form also asks you for the salary it is linked to if you are still contributing to the pension, and you would have to have entered that as a seperate income previously. Other inputs on that form are for calculations of survivor benefits, and for estimating a commuted value (although that is only a gross estimate, only your pension provided knows for sure).

You can now receive email notifications from the MoneyReady Forum.

This is turned off by default. To turn it on, first log in. On the Forum page, click on the arrow next to your username to go to Settings. There you can select from 3 options:

1.  Email me when there is a new Post in a Topic that I track
2.  Email me when there is a new Topic in the Announcements forum
3.  Email me when there is a new Topic in any Forum

Click Save once you've made your selection. You can select all 3 options but you will only get 1 email if more than one option applies for a new post.

I recommend you select option 2 to be immediately informed of any new features and changes on the MoneyReady App.

You can turn off the emails anytime by changings your Settings again.

Today Wealthica announced Free to Fee. That is no more free automatic updating of your accounts, you need to subscribe for a fee with them.

How does this affect your investments entered in the MoneyReady App?

We update whatever Wealthica gives us, so if you are subcribed with them that will continue.

We also update any investments you've previously entered with Wealthica with FundData automatically. This updates current values based on market data, given the number of shares that were entered. If you no longer have a Wealthica subcription, you just have to make sure to update your investment shares and cost basis any time you make a transaction on those investments.

If you've never had a Wealthica subscription (or never linked) and want your accounts updated automatically, for each of the investments you want to track, make sure to "Add investment" to the account its in, by the investment's currency, and in the "Symbol Search. Start typing name or symbol for Stock, ETF, Mutual F und or Segregated Fund" box enter that investment. For these  entered investments, values are updated nightly with market data from FundData. You just have to make sure to update your investment shares and cost basis any time you make a transaction on those investments.

If you have a valid Wealthica subscription and linked to Wealthica, even transactions are automatically updated for you so you will see updated values, shares and book values automatically.

This is an old post, but I only recently realised the negative credit card balance can come from a Wealthica automatically uptated account, so not one you entered manually. It is dealt with by adding it as a deposit to your Wallet account in the TIME MACHINE so it's automatically taken care of.

Ouch, that’s a tough one. What you did was good, but the Withdrawal Optimizer algorithm creates its own AUTOMATIC deposits/withdrawals and ignores your Priorities. That’s kind of the point of the Optimizer. Let me look into it to see if I can remove the requirement for the TFSA, or at least give you the option to if the holder is a US citizen. Strictly speaking the algorithm does not require a TFSA, but for most Canadians it is so advantageous to have one (for both spouses), that I kind of force it on people. I did not think about the tax problem for US citizens. Removing it from my implementation of the algorithm might also not be trivial. 

Ah ok. Now I understand why the balance kept jumping up from zero.