- Select an account and click Details to tell Quicken how you intend to spend the money in this account. Quicken assumes that tax-deferred accounts will be used for retirement.
- Select an account in the list and click New to add a contribution to the account, or select an existing contribution and click Edit to change the information about it.
- Tips about entering current investments
Current investments are the stocks, bonds, and mutual funds you own right now. They represent the investments you already purchased with past savings contributions, like the investments in your IRA or 401(k) account. If you already own many investments from past savings, you will, obviously, have a better start on retirement.
- Tips about creating a new account from this screen
click New to create a new account. Create an account as you normally would. It can be any type of account you want to create, but if it is an appropriate type of account (brokerage, IRA, 401(k), and so on), when you click Done the account will appear in the Quicken Planner: Investments list of accounts.
- Tips about contributions
The type of contribution you make depends somewhat on the type of account to which you are contributing. If it is a retirement account, the Lifetime Planner assumes you will continue to make yearly personal contributions and your employer may also contribute. If it is a brokerage account, you're given the choice of making a regular contribution (such as a set amount deducted from your paycheck ) or a one-time contribution (such as a yearly bonus).
- Tips about adding your stock options
- Create an Other Income event dated for the time you plan to exercise the option. This way, the option will not show up in your net worth until the exercise date. The amount of the income should be the current stock price multiplied by the number of shares you plan to exercise.
- Create a Special Expense event for the same date. The amount of the expense should be the exercise price multiplied by the number of shares you plan to exercise.
- Tips about interest or dividend payments
If you have decided not to reinvest interest or dividend payments from an investment but use it instead to supplement your income:
- Enter your interest/dividend income as another income item in the Other Income dialog.
- Enter the value of the investment as an asset in the Asset Accounts or Planned Assets dialog.
- Tips about recording bond income
If you use this method to record income from a bond, make sure that you set the growth rate of the bond in the Asset Accounts or Planned Assets dialog to 0 percent per year. This is necessary because you are spending the interest you earn, not reinvesting it; therefore, the value of your bond does not grow.
- Currency tips
The Lifetime Planner supports only U.S. currency. If you use non-U.S. currency accounts, their balances will be converted to U.S. dollars for planning. All currency amounts that you enter in the Lifetime Planner should be in U.S. dollars. If you have a multicurrency Quicken file and are not using U.S. dollars as your home currency, you will need to have U.S. dollars in your currency list with a current exchange rate.
- General tips
For general information on filling out the Lifetime Planner, see the
Tips topic.
Return to Get started with the Lifetime Planner.