Personal Finance (Not Investing) • The VPW Accumulation Worksheet

Hi longinvest,

I have some questions about using the VPW Accumulation Worksheet as a married couple and am curious to hear your thoughts?

Husband
Age: 25
Annual Salary: ($30,000 + $1,500 employer match) = $31,500
Portfolio Balance: $60,000
Portfolio Allocation: 90/10 stocks/bonds
Retirement Age: 50
Portfolio Contribution Frequency: Biweekly

Defined Benefit Pension #1

Name: Husband Social Security
Start Age: 70
Monthly Payment: $1,670 (75% haircut of my personalized SSA estimate, per my opinion on the future of SS)
Cost of Living Adjustments: Yes
Annual Contribution: $2,295 (calculation excludes employer 401(k) match included in salary above)

Wife
Age: 25
Annual Salary: ($61,000 + $5,063 employer match) = $66,063
Portfolio Balance: $0
Portfolio Allocation: 90/10 stocks/bonds
Retirement Age: 50
Portfolio Contribution Frequency: Biweekly

Defined Benefit Pension #2

Name: Wife Social Security
Start Age: 70
Monthly Payment: $2,146 (75% haircut of my personalized SSA estimate, per my opinion on the future of SS)
Cost of Living Adjustments: Yes
Annual Contribution: $4,666 (calculation excludes employer 401(k) match included in salary above)

Here are my questions:

• Do we list each of our Social Security contributions as separate Defined Benefit pensions? If I recall on the Retirement spreadsheet you say to not include the lower SS amount. Should we likewise do that here?

• We are currently invested aggressively in a 90/10 portfolio and plan to rebalance towards a 60/40 portfolio at retirement. As long as we update this spreadsheet annually to show changes to our AA, the portfolio balance target amount should likewise adjust right? That is to say, we aren't 'messing up' the calculations if we are currently a 90/10 but plan to be at a 60/40 AA when we use the Retirement sheet?

• You answered this previously but am I correct to include the employer match as part of annual salary. Then, to calculate our 401k target amounts, we would subtract our biweekly employer matches from the 'Biweekly Portfolio Contribution' cell to determine what we need to save outside of the match?

• Is the idea that the 'Required Flexibility' section in the Accumulator spreadsheet is essentially designed to mimic the 'Required Flexibility' in the Retirement spreadsheet? So that as an Accumulator approaches and then enters Retirement, if we was able to find flexibility in his budget as an Accumulator, he can roughly expect the Retirement flexibility dollar amount to be similar? Say in the last year as an Accumulator vs first year as a Retiree?

Statistics: Posted by silent cal — Fri Jan 31, 2025 10:01 pm — Replies 123 — Views 26437