Living expenses are typically the costs associated with your day-to-day life, such as housing, food, transportation, and healthcare. Including living expenses on your maps can help you better understand your client's financial needs and future desires.

Living expenses are a crucial part of your financial picture. They represent the ongoing costs that your client will need to cover in order to maintain your current lifestyle. By including them on your Asset-Map or Retirement Target-Map, you can get a clear picture of how much money your client is currently using or will need to cover these expenses in the future.

On an Asset-Map, you can include them as a cash flow. Click Add Cashflow and select the expense type from the Expense section of the Cash Flow Type dropdown list. This creates a negative cash flow that is subtracted from the cash flow incomes.

On a Retirement Target-Map, living expenses are typically included as part of your retirement income needs on the What You Want page. This can help you determine how much money your client desires to spend on those expenses during retirement with the expectation that you will refine those values while conversing with your client.

Please note that Target-Maps do not examine any living expenses that are created on an Asset-Map. A Retirement Target-Map generates a living expense estimate based on the client's earned income and the percentage listed in your Target-Map Preference, Retirement section.

It's important to regularly review and update your client's living expenses on their Asset-Map. As their financial situation changes, their living expenses may also change. For example, if you pay off a mortgage or your children move out of the house, their living expenses may decrease. This can be done at annual client meeting conversations.

Updates to an Asset-Map's living expense cash flow tile do not affect a Target-Map. Feel free to adjust the expected retirement living expense on the Target-Map as needed.

4/2025