Sorry if this is a dumb / obvious question, but I'm wondering how to properly account for inflation in a simple retirement planning spreadsheet I set up.
I've read a few articles about the historical returns of the S&P500. Per the first article below, the historical returns averaged from 1926-2016 was 10.2%. However, the inflation adjusted average growth was "only" 7%.
My question is that for planning purposes, which should I use? Unless I'm having a brain fart, I think it's basically a choice between showing future balances in terms of actual dollars (10.2%), or today's dollars (7%). So far I've been using the inflation adjusted percentage (and scaling back from that to be conservative). However I'm starting to lean towards just using the unadjusted percentage and trying to plan around a future dollars budget need.
https://www.financialsamurai.com/historical-returns-of-different-stock-bond-portfolio-weightings/
http://www.simplestockinvesting.com/SP500-historical-real-total-returns.htm
Submitted April 07, 2019 at 10:30PM by DarthVayne50 http://bit.ly/2VvYqrd
