I think the 4.4 early access “Flex Expenses” covers probably 80% of the use cases that most people need.

But if you think about this instead as a way to set up conditional states it could allow projection lab to become a lot more powerful.

Imagine down the line if/when projection lab supports something like “Family Planning”, i.e. having a child with associated expenses.

By creating this totally customizable “conditional state” feature you could design a system that does something like

Expense: “Kid A Daycare costs” Active when: Condition “Kid A In Daycare” is TRUE

then setup Condition “Kid A In Daycare”: * Kid A AGE LESS THAN 5

Overall, a dynamic condition system allows for huge flexibility.

But I understand with that huge flexibility also comes a TON of edge cases and associated bugs, so it will be up to you to decide how far you want to take this feature if you do take it on

This is an interesting idea. To make it useful in ways that flexible spending in 4.4 can’t already cover, It seems like plan events (income, expense, asset, and CFP) would have to be augmented with some sort of conditional trigger (do this if this milestone is activated).

That makes me suggest that these aren’t milestones in the current sense, but should be called something else – Triggers or something.

Potentially useful, but how much change is necessary to be able to say something natural like, “buy a new car in 2030, but delay if necessary until my return index is up by 10%” ?

That makes me suggest that these aren’t milestones in the current sense, but should be called something else – Triggers or something.

Yeah idk if “milestone” is the right word but thats what i thought of because it was initially inspired by wanting a milestone to turn on and off throughout the plan based on the condition which initially triggered it. And expenses already have the ability to start occurring in response to a milestone becoming active for the first time, there is just no way to “turn the expense off” if the milestones original conditions are no longer met during simulation.

I think something like “Conditional States” or “Conditional flags/booleans” is the right term, essentially just a TRUE or FALSE signal that is evaluated many times during simulation, and other things can depend on whether they are true or false.

I feel this is very closely related to, and should probably be considered along with: https://changemap.co/projectifi/projectifi/task/5850-decision-variables/

yes this is absolutely in the same line and probably can be all implemented as one feature. That feature request never came up in my search but it’s absolutely the same concept

Sounds good – I’m going to close this one, in a few days, to avoid clutter, but please take the opportunity to add your comments to the older request. https://changemap.co/projectifi/projectifi/task/5850-decision-variables/

FYI – I’m going to close this one in a few days, to avoid clutter, but please take the opportunity to add your comments to the older request. https://changemap.co/projectifi/projectifi/task/5850-decision-variables/

I’ve added my comments to that thread, feel free to those close this. Thank you!