I used to rely on spreadsheets to manage my finances, but as my accounts and portfolio grew more complex, it became impossible to keep up. That’s when I discovered the Boldin™ Financial Planner (formerly NewRetirement), a financial tool that makes managing money easy. This tool not only simplified my financial life but also provided insights into taxes, future cash flow, and personalized strategies to keep me on track.
Back when my financial life was simple, a spreadsheet was more than enough to track my income, expenses, and savings. I enjoyed building formulas that kept everything organized, and for a time, that worked just fine. However, as my accounts multiplied, my portfolio grew more complex, and tax laws changed, I found myself constantly tweaking my spreadsheet to keep up. It got to a point where I needed to create complex formulas and macros just to manage scenarios, and honestly, it became unsustainable.
After setting up all my accounts, income, expenses, and future income streams (like pensions), Boldin started doing the heavy lifting for me. The transition from spreadsheets to Boldin was a game-changer for me.
- Key Takeaways
- Onboarding Process: Getting Started with Ease
- Comprehensive Financial Planning
- Scenario Planning
- Real-time Monitoring and Instant Feedback
- Personalized Recommendations
- Insights into Tax Planning
- Monte Carlo Simulations
- Spending and Budgeting Tools
- Healthcare and Long-term Care Planning
- Roth Conversion Explorer
- Passive Income and Investments
- Support and Flexibility: Help When You Need It
- Cloud-Based Convenience
- Summary
Key Takeaways
- The Boldin Financial Planner simplifies complex financial management, replacing spreadsheets with a more comprehensive, automated tool.
- Boldin offers advanced scenario planning, allowing users to compare financial outcomes and make informed decisions effortlessly.
- The tool provides real-time monitoring of key financial metrics, offering personalized recommendations based on your financial goals.
- With built-in tax planning, Monte Carlo simulations, and a Roth Conversion Explorer, Boldin helps users stay ahead of tax changes and optimize their wealth strategies.
Onboarding Process: Getting Started with Ease
The onboarding process with this financial tool is designed to be user-friendly, guiding you step-by-step. You can choose between two paths: the Comprehensive path for a more in-depth setup, or the Quick path, which allows you to input essential details quickly and fill in more specifics later.
Whichever path you choose, the planner will guide you through providing the following key information:
- Income Sources: Be prepared to enter your current and future income streams, such as salary, pensions, Social Security benefits, and any other relevant income sources.
- Expenses: You’ll be asked to list your fixed and discretionary expenses, including housing costs, utilities, healthcare, and lifestyle expenses.
- Accounts and Investments: You’ll need to connect or manually enter details about your bank accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement plans (401(k), IRA), and any other investment vehicles.
- Debt Information: Include information about outstanding loans, mortgages, and other debts that could affect your financial plan.
- Future Goals: You can input your financial goals, such as retirement plans, major purchases, or educational expenses, to help the planner map out scenarios that align with your aspirations.
After the onboarding process, instead of updating my spreadsheet regularly, I can just log into Boldin, and everything is there. I can check in weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on how hands-on I want to be.
Comprehensive Financial Planning
Boldin goes beyond tracking savings and investments—it’s a complete financial planner. It allows me to factor in everything from taxes to future income sources, debt, spending patterns, and even where I plan to live in the future. This holistic approach to financial planning gave me the clarity that my spreadsheet just couldn’t.
Scenario Planning
One of Boldin’s standout features is the ability to run “What If” scenarios. In my spreadsheet days, modeling different scenarios, like living five years longer or taking out a loan, meant manually changing formulas and hoping I didn’t break something. Now, with Boldin, I can run scenarios with a few clicks. I can even compare different scenarios side by side to see the impact on my long-term financial health.
For example, have you ever wondered if relocating could change your financial picture? With Boldin, I ran scenarios to see how moving would affect my future cash flow and net worth. The system even calculated how state taxes would differ depending on my new location, making it easy to compare options before making a big decision.
Real-time Monitoring and Instant Feedback
What’s great about Boldin is that it provides real-time updates on key financial metrics, like my tax liabilities, investment growth, and expenses. Every time I tweak my plan or run a new scenario, the platform gives me instant feedback with detailed charts and visualizations. It’s like having a personal financial advisor available 24/7, but without the high fees!
Personalized Recommendations
Boldin’s AI is another powerful tool. The platform automatically provides personalized suggestions to optimize my financial plan. Whether it’s alerting me to a missed opportunity or flagging potential errors, Boldin helps me improve my financial standing with minimal effort.
Insights into Tax Planning
When I was using spreadsheets, staying on top of tax law changes and understanding my lifetime tax liabilities was a massive challenge. Boldin simplifies this by automatically calculating my federal and state tax estimates. It also handles Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), Roth conversion strategies, and even factors in state-specific tax rules. This level of detail was far beyond what I could manage in a spreadsheet.
Curious how much a Roth conversion would affect your tax situation? With Boldin’s Roth Conversion Explorer, I modeled different strategies and instantly saw the tax impact in the year of the conversion, as well as the benefit years down the road.
If you are subject to IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount), the planner will include its cost in your overall tax calculation. IRMAA is calculated based on your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from two years prior.
Monte Carlo Simulations
Boldin’s Monte Carlo feature runs 1,000 simulations to show a range of possible outcomes for my savings and investments. This kind of analysis, which would be nearly impossible to replicate in a spreadsheet, helps me feel more confident about my financial future. I can see whether I’m likely to run out of money, based on various rates of return and spending levels.
Not sure when to retire or if you can afford to? Boldin’s Monte Carlo simulations will show you your financial “success score” by running thousands of scenarios, giving you confidence in your decision-making.
Spending and Budgeting Tools
One of the more flexible features I love is the ability to budget for different phases of life. Boldin allows me to set spending levels in over 70 different categories and see how my future financial picture changes as I adjust my lifestyle. Whether I plan for higher healthcare costs in later years or more travel in early retirement, Boldin helps me visualize the financial impact.
Curious about healthcare costs in retirement? Boldin estimates your projected out-of-pocket expenses, helping you build a solid financial plan that accounts for one of your biggest future costs.
Healthcare and Long-term Care Planning
Speaking of healthcare, Boldin helps estimate my future healthcare costs, including out-of-pocket expenses in retirement and options for funding long-term care. This insight is invaluable as healthcare can be one of the largest expenses in retirement, and Boldin gives me peace of mind knowing I’ve planned for it.
Roth Conversion Explorer
For those interested in Roth conversions, Boldin has a Roth Conversion Explorer that suggests personalized strategies based on my lifetime financial plan. I no longer have to guess how much to convert or when; the platform runs all the calculations for me, providing tax-efficient strategies that fit my goals.
Choose the strategy you would like to model—for example, Highest estate value or convert up to a specific tax bracket—and the planner will generate the conversions you will need to make to achieve that strategy. I can’t image computing this manually or even in a spreadsheet!
Passive Income and Investments
Boldin also allows me to plan for passive income streams, like rental properties or dividends. The system models how different rates of return or asset allocations can affect my long-term financial health. Whether it’s real estate investments or stock portfolios, Boldin gives me a clear view of my potential outcomes.
Support and Flexibility: Help When You Need It
While the planner is self-directed and intuitive to use, Boldin offers a range of support options to ensure you’re never stuck. Whether you’re just getting started or need help fine-tuning your plan, Boldin provides access to educational resources like personal finance classes to help you better understand your financial journey.
If you’re looking for more personalized guidance, Boldin also offers retirement coaches and affordable consultation with a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). This added layer of support is perfect for those who need reassurance or expert advice on complicated financial decisions.
Plus, their chat support is responsive and helpful, with clear answers to your questions. For community-driven support, you can also connect with others on Facebook and Reddit groups, where users share experiences and tips.
Cloud-Based Convenience
One of the standout features of this tool is that all your data is stored securely in the cloud, so you can access and update your financial plan no matter where you are. Unlike a spreadsheet, you don’t have to worry about losing your data or manually backing it up—everything is saved automatically and can be retrieved from any device. This flexibility means you can keep your financial life organized whether you’re at home, traveling, or on the go.
Summary
In short, Boldin has revolutionized how I manage my finances. What used to be an overwhelming spreadsheet with complex formulas is now an organized, easy-to-maintain system that gives me confidence in my financial future. If you’re struggling to stay on top of your growing financial portfolio like I was, I highly recommend giving Boldin a try.
As an affiliate, I invite you to check out the Boldin Financial Planner ↗ for yourself. It’s a small step that could make a huge difference in your financial planning!