Retirement Portfolio Analysis Course Reviews

I just spent my Saturday afternoon watching Craig’s 2nd class (out of 3) from May 4, 2022, and was very impressed! He hit a home run for a number of reasons.

 

First, Craig has a special knack for making complex things simple. Most people who are not Excel-savvy (like me) generally panic when they see an Excel spreadsheet like the one Craig uses. But somehow Craig makes it seem easy. That’s important.

 

Second, the content of the spreadsheet is absolutely awesome. When I first showed the spreadsheet to one of my engineer clients (who is in quality control, so he’s very picky), his response was, “Well, that was the past. Can it tell me about the future and what will happen to my own portfolio?” He wasn’t trying to be a smart aleck, just was incisively sharing his thoughts. It turned out he was asking that theoretically. He already knew the answer, of course. But that’s not the point of the spreadsheet, as Craig explained in Class #2. The spreadsheet illustrates what a reasonable person who has studied market history might come to expect over the next 96 years. And that reasonable person would have every right to assume patterns of the past would apply similarly to the future — I know that’s how I would feel.

 

Third, the addition of the Social Security tab (titled “Cash Flow”) is another great tool.  This feature was suggested by an A4A member at Class 2 on May 4. By the time I watched the class in early August, Craig had already followed through on his promise to add the Social Security feature. Bravo! This is something that will help a lot of people who are relying on SS for part of their living expenses.

 

Andrew J. Fama, JD, MHA, AEP®, MRFC®, Real Fiduciary™, practitioner in Rochester, NY, has been a member of Advisors4Advisors since inception in 2009. As a volunteer on A4A’s Editorial Review Board since 2017, he often reviews technical legal, tax, and financial planning content for A4A and was furnished Craig Israelsen’s Retirement Analyzer Software and course for free.