Savings / net worth projection and tracking tools?

[NewReality]

Anyone know of a good tool for tracking and projecting their net worth?

Ideally, the solution would allow me to create projections based on inputted itemized incomes and outgoes (as granular as you'd like), asset and loss class items, and specify amount, interest rate, and cost increase schedules for each item. The tool would then use this info to build a projection into the future, broken down monthly, that you could then periodically enter actuals against in order to measure your performance. It would allow you to maintain different models or baselines for considering how different investments, jobs or expense choices you make might play out into the future

[jacob]

Excel or similar spreadsheets.

[GandK]

Yep. I use a spreadsheet in Google Docs for ours.

[Chad]

Excel. It's just easier to modify and get what I want from it than prepackaged financial software.

[WillS]

Mathematica has a really neat spreadhsheet for this in their demo portfolio for their computable document format. Really neat. It works great for 'what -if' analysis. Of course, you can also fool around with excel or Libre calc or whatever.

http://www.wolfram.com/cdf/uses-example ... ments.html

[WillS]

To use that, you'd have to consolidate your figures a bit, but it's still fun for big-picture thinking.

[steveo73]

R for projections and getting the data right. Some database for storing historical data. I just use R and don't track history.

I think R is one of the best pieces of software ever invented and I'm sure I'm just an average hack user.

[IlliniDave]

For my quick and dirty scratch work I use the Open Office spreadsheet program, "calc" I think it's called. It's free, and more-or-less functionally identical to Excel 2003 and prior. There are tools out there like firecalc that you could probably use for that purpose as well that would allow a little more detail/complexity regarding investment return modeling. I'm pretty sure it models both pre-retirement accumulation and post-retirement distribution.

I like using spreadsheets because, as Chad points out, the process of getting it do do exactly what you want is more direct. Plus, it's probably worth the effort to understand the math behind it yourself. Some years ago I wrote a Monte Carlo tool in an old student version of matlab which was kind of neat and for a while made me feel that my analysis was more sophisticated, but in the end elegant guesswork is still guesswork. Nowadays I just use a steady, modest growth rate (3.5%) and keep it simple. I'm nearing the end of accumulation and have recently retooled my omnibus spreadsheet to focus more on retirement income details than on accumulation.

[vexed87]

If you are not handy in excel, YNAB is a great expense/income tracking tool and has nice little reporting features which are fun to play with. You can log all your assets/liabilities in YNAB much like a spreadsheet, however the user interface is much more intuitive. It allows you to run reports on all sorts, net worth, debts vs liabilities, just debts, spending by category etc etc.

http://sslcdn-youneedabudgetco.netdna-s ... _worth.jpg

I use YNAB to track expenditures on the go, which is particularly useful for cash expenses. While I would question its usefulness, particularly with low expenses individual (i.e. not too many outgoings) it's nice to check your net worth in a smartphone app if you are that way inclined, a great motivational tool early on in your ERE journey

Unlike debit cards, with cash you cannot download spreadsheets of in-goings/out-goings from online banking! Having a means of logging expenses without receipts is it's greatest feature for me allowing more accurate net worth and expense tracking. Think fruit and veg purchases at the local farmers market. Although YNAB is great at tracking expenses, I do find the reporting somewhat limiting so I now export the data to my own even fancier tables/charts in excel and have reproduced most of YNAB's features for free.

The key to getting the most of all tracking tools, whether you choose YNAB, spreadsheets, google sheets etc, is not what the application can do, but the quality of the data that you put in. If you track every transaction, you get a good overall picture, but if you take the time to pour over receipts, you can work out exactly how much you spend on a certain product in a year. i.e. understanding that I spend £4 a month on onions from a supermarket, as apposed to £250 on general groceries would enable me to make informed choice about when and wear I purchase certain items. If I spent (£4 x12=) £48 on onions in a year at the supermarket, but realised I could buy them in bulk from ethic stores, for (£3x5=) £15 a year, the spreadsheet achieved something!

I haven't gone to that extreme yet and just track individual transactions and categories them as loosely as possible, but now I am down to 10 or so transactions a month, I'm thinking about delving into the details a little more to see how much I could save. I'm betting it's a lot.

[NewReality]

Update: I poked around and didn't see anything I was looking for so I created one for Google Sheets.

What I created is a sheet where you can create schedules for separate incomes and outgoes, assets, debts, and includes features such as the ability to define growth percentages (interest), maturity and redistribution options, etc. for each item. You can also include one-time scheduled transaction type items that move funds from one source to another, such as for rebalancing. Through a custom menu function you then invoke a script which uses your info to generate projections into the future.

With it I can model different scenarios of everything I am considering doing over the next few years and see it's affect on bottom line and retirement target. As I'm just getting started, it allows me to see the general affect of all the choices I have before me.

I've shared this in case anyone else is interested in this or would like to provide feedback. Also, feel free to modify for your own purposes as you wish.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing

Instructions:
==========
1. Open the sheet "Asset Projection Sheets r1a" from the above linked folder
2. Copy the contents to a new Google Sheet (you will need to edit further)
3. In the new sheet, click on Tools > Script Editor... menu item and then opt to open a "Blank Project"
4. In a new tab, open the file "AssetProjects.r1a.js" from the above linked folder
5. Copy the contents of the file into the code page view of the Script Editor displayed in #3 above, replace any contents of that view
6. Click Publish > Test as Add-On... menu item, then select INSTALLATION CONFIG = Enabled in current document, then Select Doc = {your new sheet}, then click Save. Next, in the 'Test as add-on' dialog, select 'Latest code' radio button and then click 'Test'.
7. A new item, 'Asset Projection' should appear on the menu.
8. Modify the 'Asset model' sheet with your details (check the column header notes for hints), then click 'Asset Projection' menu item to build the projects, which will appear on a new sheet. Note that you can have several models, the projection build will work against the active sheet.

Disclaimer:
=========
This is a first draft proof-of-concept offering only, submitted for consideration. Please double-check results before considering them good information.

[BlueNote]

Spreadsheets

Lots of free options. Excel is the best of breed.

[fiby41]

Use Akratics template in Google Docs

viewtopic.php?t=279

Alternatively you can save and edit it in MS Excel.

[steveo73]

I don't know what PF is but explain it to me and I'll try and help. R is used for statistical modelling. It's a great tool.

[Gilberto de Piento]

PF is personal finance.

[jacob]

@henders - Compare to Mathematica, Matlab, ... R is stat-focused ditto tool that admits the use of macros and functional-based programming language. Better, it's free!

Since pf contains math and R solves math ... the conclusion obtains. One could, for example, use R to generate the graphs in the back of the ERE book.

[BlueNote]

I just did some research on R and I don't understand why someone would use it for personal finance when free spreadsheets are available. R has a much steeper learning curve then a spreadsheet and is purpose built for statistics. Personal finance software requirements seems to be like 80% bookeeping/accounting and 20% Finance. R is like a scalpel , precise and designed for a specific area of use. Spreadsheets are like a swiss army knife, multipurpose but not particularly outstanding in any one area of use.

[jacob]

@BlueNote - People are usually stronger using a familiar tool even if it's not the optimal tool. My first FIRE tracking tool was built in fortran90. Incidentally, the graphs in the book were solved with java and plotted with gnuplot. It's all very idiosyncratic.

[Gilberto de Piento]

I wouldn't recommend R for this unless you want to do something that a spreadsheet isn't good at.

[BlueNote]

@BlueNote - People are usually stronger using a familiar tool even if it's not the optimal tool. My first FIRE tracking tool was built in fortran90. Incidentally, the graphs in the book were solved with java and plotted with gnuplot. It's all very idiosyncratic.

That's a good point and I should have considered the perspective of one who has mastery over a tool like that. Also if one had the goal of learning R and the goal of building a FIRE tracking tool then combining the two goals could very well be more efficient and satisfying then pursuing them separately.