When the programs are updated, they are posted on www.analyzenow.com with a new date in the file name.  There is a log at the bottom of the first tab that describes the update which often does not affect many people.  We keep the same passwords for a long time unless something unusual happens, so you can get free updates that way.  If we change the password, and if you bought the program within one year of your request for a new password, we give that free.  Currently, anyone who bought the program more than one year earlier pays only 50% of whatever is the current order cost.

First submit your order and check on one of the order forms on this site. Fill out the order form, enclose your check, and mail to Analyze Now Inc., PO Box 5904, Kent, WA 98064. We will email you the password to open the program after we get the order.

Go to www.analyzenow.com and find the link to the program you want to download. If it’s not a free download, you will need to get the password first.

Netscape users: position the cursor on "Link to the Dynamic Financial Planning Pro Download" left click on link and follow instructions. Internet Explorer users: position the cursor on "Link to the Dynamic Financial Planning Pro Download" right click and then select "Save Target As" from the menu. Enter the password to open the program after you have downloaded it.

Use the Copy and Paste commands. If you have formulas or links in the older versions, it may be better to use the Paste Special, Values command under Edit on the tool bar unless you check carefully to see that what you pasted in the new program cell is exactly what you want. You can only do this with the blue colored cells, but you can copy blocks of blue colored cells as long as they are contiguous and are in the same order as the new program cells.

Affordable expenses are the result of the computers calculations to tell you how much you can budget for your normal living expenses in retirement. It’s always an after-tax number, and if you made entries for special expenses or debts, it excludes those expenses as well as interest and principal payments on the debt. The computer gives first priority to paying income taxes, debt payments, and any special expenses you might enter including insurance payments, college expenses, or whatever. Then, after those are paid, it makes a calculation to determine how much you can afford to spend for everything else. All of our programs let you enter a different affordable expense so that you can see what will happen to your investment balances at higher or lower affordable expense levels.

How do I enter more deferred-tax (or other) investments on the Investment tab?

With the Investment tab up, go to Insert on the toolbar at the top of the screen.  Click on Worksheet.  That will insert a new worksheet into the program next to the Investment tab. 

You can use the New Worksheet to enter additional accounts, more information and updates.  If you want, you can change the title on the tab from the default Sheet […] to another name for the New Worksheet  by right clicking on its tab.  You could call it Def'd Tax Invst for example.

Copy the deferred-tax (and/or other investment) table from the Investment tab.  Paste it into the New Worksheet.  (After pasting, you can save the time to change column widths by next going to Edit on the toolbar, select Paste Special, then Column Widths, then Enter.) 

Insert as many additional rows (Insert, Rows) or columns as you need in the table in the New Worksheet and enter your additional account information.  Then, on the New Worksheet, sum the values in each column.

Then go back to the Investment tab and delete those entries.  Select one row on the Investment tab for the summary values.  Label it “Summary—See [title you gave the new tab].”  Then in each of the numerical cells of the Investment tab summary row, type an = sign (but don't hit Enter), click on the New Worksheet tab, click on its corresponding summary cell in the New Worksheet, and then Enter.  Thus your Investment tab cell will have the same value as in the summary row of the New Worksheet.  Do this for each numerical cell in the summary row.  Thereafter, make updates on the New Worksheet.

I can't see the tabs that are supposed to be at the bottom of the screen for some of the programs.

Go to the very top right-hand corner of your screen and click on the icon that has the two squares between the [-] minimize and [X] exit icons.  If you are using Microsoft Vista, go to View in the toolbar, then click on Full Screen.

I can't change an entry and get the message that I need a password.

Such cells can't be changed by typing in a new number. They are either controlled by a button next to the cell or are derived from inputs elsewhere in the program.

In the Dynamic program, it's important to use the control on the Base Case & Alternate tabs in row 107 to see that you get some flattening of the Affordable Expenses in the charts on those tabs. Further, it's good to look at some actual scenarios such as the very conservative one starting in 1965 by using the controls starting on rows 140-145 of the Base Case & Alternate tabs. If you must use a very optimistic scenario to meet your "affordable expense" goals you are treading on thin ice just as you would be if you were dependent on a portfolio with a very high concentration of stocks.

The Dynamic program default settings have a bias to take more from deferred-tax accounts and less from "other" accounts as long as there are sufficient funds in "other" accounts. When the IRS revised its required minimum distributions (RMD), they effectively added about 10 years to life-expectancies. You can see the effect by changing the setting in the Base Case cell E168 from 5 years to 10. (If you enter 0, then the life-expectancies would correspond to a single (IRS unisex) person without any conservatism.) With a setting of 10, the draw percentage (shown on the Def'd & Other tab) will be more like the IRS RMDs. You must be certain that the draws are always equal to or more than the RMDs in the last column of the Def'd and Other tab. As a practical matter, the affordable expenses are not very sensitive to whether you take the money from deferred-tax or taxable accounts (unless the allocations are entirely different) until you start to worry about estate taxes.

Neither this program nor any other can make an infallible projection of a safe amount to spend each year. If I feel uncomfortable about a projection for a retiree or someone close to retirement, I usually make a very rough check to see that the affordable expense amount is less than the after-tax value of Social Security and any COLA pension plus the after-tax value of a fixed pension and any fixed immediate annuity times the current age divided by 100 plus the sum of the after-tax values of all investments (less debts) divided by the number of years I would like the money to last. There are several papers about this on www.analyzenow.com.

The Dynamics program from www.analyzenow.com can give you unusual insight into the answer. On the "Def’d & Other tab", you can see the deferred-tax account withdrawal that corresponds to the scenario and inputs you used. Nevertheless, for the ages between 59 1/2 and 70 ½, there is lots of flexibility concerning how much you could be taking from a taxable account vs. a deferred tax account. As a practical matter, I've found that most of the time there is little effect on the amount you calculate for affordable expenses whether or not you bias the draws from either type of account.

Also, as a practical matter, it's very easy to make the correct draws from investments if you focus on achieving your affordable expenses budget. You can make the investment draws come out right if you use one checking account for all of your expenses and an investment account(s) to pay your taxes. Simply don't put any more into the checking account for expenses than the affordable expense budget. (If you included debts in your analysis or special expenses, you can also afford to use that checking account for those payments or use an investment account.)

You "feed" the checking account for expenses with your Social Security and pension checks. When you need more cash in the checking account for expenses within the calculated affordable amounts, then you must get money from your investment accounts to supplement the checking account used for expenses. Whether you take the money from deferred-tax or taxable accounts is immaterial from this standpoint, but, of course, the amount of tax you will pay on the withdrawals to get that cash will be different, but the taxes are either covered by withholding or from the investment account.

Whether you should make those extra draws from taxable or deferred-tax accounts is a more profound question. With the Dynamics program on www.analyzenow.com, you can make a detailed assessment of which would be better, but of course that, in turn, is dependent on what happens to tax law in the future as well as how your respective investments perform in those two tax categories. In general, the best thing to do in most situations is to spend down taxable accounts more quickly when you have a choice. Then, if you expect to get hit hard by estate taxes, it theoretically would be better to take more from deferred-tax accounts very late in life. However, all of this is pure speculation when you consider how much tax laws have changed in the past.

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