Import a plan from ProjectionLab

Bring your plans over

1. In ProjectionLab, open Account Settings › Export Data and save the file. Export is part of ProjectionLab Premium.
2. In FIYR, open FIRE. Under Scenarios, click the import icon next to + Save this plan and choose the file (or drop it on the box).
3. Pick the plans to bring over. Your main plan is ticked; each one becomes a scenario named PL: <name>. If FIYR doesn't have your birthday or your partner yet, you can add them from the file.
4. Match each ProjectionLab account to one you already have in FIYR, add it as a manual account, or leave it out. A home's loan comes with it; if FIYR already has that loan (often the case, since a linked bank brings the mortgage over without the house), match it there so it isn't counted twice.
5. Review: each plan with its Freedom Date in FIYR and what came over. Click Import the plan (or Import 2 plans, and so on).

Your own plan doesn't change. The first plan you import is ticked to compare with yours on the chart and in the table. Use this plan makes it your plan, and what you had is kept as a scenario.

What comes over

Accounts

Cash, taxable, 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), IRA, Roth, HSA, 529 and crypto, each with its tax type and the return ProjectionLab grows it at (the plan's growth plus dividends, or the account's own rate). Homes and cars with their value and loan; debts with their payment and rate.

Retirement

Retirement at financial independence becomes FIYR's FI date. An imported plan is tested for FI exactly the way ProjectionLab tests it (liquid net worth above a multiple of your recent spending, before tax), so the Freedom Date lines up with the year and age ProjectionLab showed you. A retirement date comes over as your retirement age; FIYR then retires you at that date or at FI, whichever comes first, so if you reach FI sooner your pay stops earlier than in ProjectionLab. Your partner's retirement comes over as a date or as years after FI.

Income

Salaries, side income, pensions and part-time phases become the plan's own income, as take-home pay: ProjectionLab stores pay before tax, so FIYR takes off federal and state tax, FICA and what goes to your 401(k) and HSA, Roth 401(k) included. Pay stops when its owner retires; pensions keep paying. Under Income now, Imported plan uses it.

Saving

Your 401(k)-type contributions and your employer's match (a percent of pay, as ProjectionLab sets it), Roth IRA and HSA dollars. Each salary's owner comes from the Flow that saves from it. What's left over is saved, as in ProjectionLab.

Spending

Costs that run from now on are your spending now and in retirement; costs from retirement on are your spending in retirement; costs with their own years (daycare, college, a wedding) become life events, and a cost that repeats (an emergency every 20 years) repeats here. Costs that run to the end of the plan run to 95 in FIYR. Healthcare and Medicare set FIYR's healthcare, and healthcare that carries on past 65 counts after 65 too. Loan payments and what your home costs to own count as spending now.

Purchases and sales

Each plan lists what you already own too; those stay your home and cars, not purchases. A home you plan to buy becomes a Buy a home event, and a car every few years a repeating cost. When a plan sells something you own, the money from the sale comes in that year and what it cost to own stops.

Social Security and taxes

Your benefit and claim age (with ProjectionLab's haircut), federal brackets, your state's rate, cost basis, Roth conversions and your withdrawal strategy.

What is approximated

FIYR's model isn't ProjectionLab's, so some things land close rather than exact, and the import says which and how:

• Raises: FIYR uses one rate for all pay, and says when a raise limit would be reached before you retire. Costs rise with inflation: one that grows faster in ProjectionLab (living expenses rising 6% a year up to a limit) uses its average level in retirement.
• Costs with their own years count in whole years (a year with six months or more of them).
• State tax is one rate for your state. Roth conversions fill the 12% bracket each year instead of a fixed amount.
• A flat tax rate in ProjectionLab applies to income, with its own rate on gains and nothing on Roth money. FIYR charges the flat rate on every dollar you withdraw, so retirement looks leaner here.
• For now FIYR stops your partner's pay once your household reaches FI. If ProjectionLab has them working longer, the import says so.
• A plan that changes something you own (a smaller car payment, say) runs on your current figures in FIYR; the import lists each change.
• FIYR plans to 95, and runs every scenario on the same accounts, so a plan with its own return keeps the return of your main plan's accounts.
• ProjectionLab's FI counts your whole net worth; FIYR counts the money you can spend, so a home doesn't make you FI.

What doesn't come over yet

An emergency fund target, extra debt payments and the order of your Flows; tax credits and deductions; IRMAA; rental income from a property; a bond glide path; flex spending; and your net worth history. FIYR keeps its own history from your linked accounts. These are on the way.

Why the dates can differ

The Freedom Date is meant to match: an imported plan is tested for FI the way ProjectionLab tests it, so the year and age line up. FIYR shows the date as a year and age, since ProjectionLab works year by year and a to-the-month match isn't honest. The years after it can differ more, mostly from a partner working past FI and how each app taxes withdrawals; What came over on the scenario shows each difference.