About the Lifetime Planner
The Money Lifetime Planner helps you accomplish your long-term
goals. These goals might include retirement, paying for college, or
taking a sabbatical from work.
You can try out just about any event that might have a major
financial impact on your lifetime plan. For example, you can
"model" what would happen if you took some time off work, received
an inheritance, sent all your kids to college, or retired early.
You can enter these events in your plan or try out the Financial
Event Modeler. This feature uses your actual data, but lets you
test different scenarios without actually putting them in your
lifetime plan.
Your lifetime plan is automatically integrated with information
you enter elsewhere in Money. For example, when you update the
balances of your investment accounts
(A
brokerage account, retirement account, or other account in which
you hold investments. You track individual investments, such as
stock purchases, in the associated investment account. ) and
other accounts in the Banking area, they're automatically updated
in the Lifetime Planner.
Once you create your lifetime plan, the Lifetime Planner tells
you what you need to do to start following through. If you keep
your accounts current, update your goals as they change, and try to
follow the other strategies suggested throughout the Lifetime
Planner, your forecasts will be accurate, no matter where life
takes you.
Notes
- The Lifetime Planner requires detailed information on your
finances, including your investments, retirement accounts
(An
account, usually tax-deferred, designed to provide savings for
retirement. Examples include 401(k) and IRA accounts.) , and
assets (An item of
value that you own. Assets can be tracked in Money by using asset
accounts.) , as well as living expenses and other data. If
you haven't already entered this information in Money, the Lifetime
Planner will walk you through how to add it.
- Two other planning tools are available in Money. The Debt
Reduction Planner can help you create a plan to get out of
debt (Money owed to
another person or company, such as loans, credit card balances, or
mortgages. ) . The Advanced Budget
(The Advanced Budget option in Money gives you more
detail and long-term planning tools. You can break your expenses
into categories and subcategories, set up and access multiple
budgets, track irregular or one-time expenses, reallocate funds
from one budget category to another, and set savings goals.
) can help you create a budget so you can better manage your
income and expenses, and include that information in your lifetime
plan.