How Can I Use Bond Allocation and Location Features to Optimize My Plan?

This guide explains how bond overrides and location features work, giving you the flexibility to optimize your plan and tailor it to your financial goals or circumstances. For example, you can prioritize bonds in tax-advantaged accounts or accounts you plan to leave untouched for a long time.

What Are Bond Allocations and Overrides?

Bond Allocation: This represents the percentage of your portfolio allocated to bonds. You can set this at both the Plan level and the Account level.

Plan Level:

Account Level:

Overrides: This allows you to customize bond allocations for specific Accounts. For instance, if your overall Plan allocates 20% to bonds, you could set one account to hold 40% instead. This is especially helpful if some accounts have tax advantages or if you want to prioritize bonds in accounts you’re unlikely to withdraw from early. Overrides allow you to configure your portfolio to better align with actual circumstances.

How to Use Bond Overrides

When you apply a bond override to an Account:

• ProjectionLab prioritizes meeting the specified allocation for that Account, even if it differs from the overall bond percentage in your plan.
• Other Accounts will adjust their bond allocations to compensate for the override. However, if these adjustments can’t balance to the overall bond target, you’ll see a warning notification (details below).

If you set one account to hold 40% bonds, ProjectionLab will reduce bond allocations in other accounts to make up the difference. If it can’t maintain the overall allocation, a warning will guide you to resolve the issue.

Bond Location Prioritization

ProjectionLab gives you flexibility in deciding where your bonds are held across your portfolio (underneath Settings → Bonds→ Bond Location.)

If you want bonds to be prioritized in specific Accounts, you can set custom priorities to allocate bonds to these accounts first until your portfolio-wide bond allocation target is met. The graphs provide a clear visualization of how your bond distribution evolves over time, making it easy to see the impact of your settings.

Viewing Portfolio and Account Allocations in the Context of Bonds

You can access the Portfolio and Account views from the sidebar on the right side of your main Plan view.

The Portfolio Allocations graph displays your portfolio-level asset allocation across your plan. You can view this by percentages or amount. The Allocation By Percent view will provide a clear picture of how bonds are distributed across your plan and in a given year. Keep in mind that if you’ve overridden allocations for specific Accounts, the portfolio allocation may differ from your Plan-level allocation set in Plan Settings.

By Amount View:

By Percentage View: