The question:

“I’ve built a TIPS ladder (or Treasury ladder). Why can’t I tell MaxiFi when each bond matures?”

The short answer is:

Because MaxiFi is designed to optimize your financial plan, not manage your investments.

While the distinction may seem subtle, it’s an important part of how MaxiFi approaches retirement planning.

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What MaxiFi Is Designed to Do

MaxiFi helps answer questions like:

  • How much can I safely spend each year?
  • Which accounts should I withdraw from?
  • When should I claim Social Security?
  • Should I consider Roth conversions?
  • How can I maximize my lifetime living standard?

To answer those questions, MaxiFi models:

  • Your account balances
  • Expected long-term investment assumptions
  • Income sources
  • Taxes
  • Future expenses

It intentionally does not model the individual investments inside each account.

What MaxiFi Doesn’t Track

MaxiFi doesn’t ask:

  • Which stocks do you own?
  • Which mutual funds are in your IRA?
  • Which ETF will you sell first?
  • Which CD matures next year?
  • Which TIPS bond matures in 2032?

Those decisions are considered part of your investment strategy, not your financial plan.

Instead, MaxiFi looks at the account as a whole and determines how much should be withdrawn from it over time.

Why Doesn’t the Maturity Date Matter?

Suppose you own a TIPS ladder with one bond maturing each year.

From an investment perspective, each bond has its own:

  • Maturity date
  • Coupon
  • Principal value
  • Inflation adjustment

Those details are important for managing the ladder.

From MaxiFi’s perspective, however, each maturity simply results in cash becoming available within your account.

Whether that cash comes from:

  • A bond reaching maturity,
  • A CD maturing,
  • Selling a Treasury,
  • Selling an ETF, or
  • Selling shares of a mutual fund,

the planning question remains the same: How much should be withdrawn from the account this year?

What If I Built My TIPS Ladder Specifically to Fund Retirement?

Many users intentionally build a TIPS ladder to provide predictable retirement income. That’s a perfectly reasonable investment strategy. However, MaxiFi still treats the ladder as part of your investment portfolio because its goal is to optimize your overall spending plan rather than model each individual security.

If you would like to represent the ladder as a stream of known cash flows, there are alternative approaches, such as modeling it with an annuity or Special Receipts.

For more information, see How Should I Model a TIPS Ladder in MaxiFi?

Wouldn't Modeling Each Bond Make My Plan More Accurate?

Not necessarily. While modeling every bond maturity may feel more precise, it also requires significantly more maintenance and generally has little impact on the overall financial plan.

For most users:

  • Updating account balances periodically
  • Using reasonable long-term return assumptions
  • Letting MaxiFi optimize withdrawals

produces results that are very close to modeling each bond individually, without the additional complexity.

Frequently Asked Questions

My brokerage account value changes even though I plan to hold my TIPS to maturity. Should I update the balance?

Yes. Even if you intend to hold the bonds until maturity, periodically updating your account balance keeps your plan aligned with current market values and allows MaxiFi’s assumptions to remain relevant over time.

If MaxiFi doesn’t track individual bonds, how do I know which one to spend?

That decision is part of your investment implementation. MaxiFi determines how much should come from an account. Your brokerage account or investment strategy determines which specific security provides that cash.

Does this apply only to TIPS ladders?

No. The same philosophy applies to:

  • Treasury ladders
  • CD ladders
  • Municipal bond ladders
  • Bond portfolios
  • Stock portfolios
  • Mutual funds
  • ETFs

MaxiFi focuses on the financial plan, while leaving investment implementation to you or your investment advisor.