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Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance and financial independence

projectifi.io

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Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance and financial independence

#61

Post by dr_orpheus »

gjulianm wrote: post #10

I gave a quick try and just from the first look this looks amazing. It's precisely what I'm missing in my spreadsheets for my personal finance: probabilistic planning. I'd consider paying the premium tier but I miss a few things: - Support for tax brackets in other countries (maybe let users introduce them manually) - Support for "disasters" in the probabilistic case. I'd be interested in knowing how robust is my str…

Along the vein of supporting "disasters" one of the most interesting useful features when seeing a financial planner for our family was looking at possible effects of death and disability.

I haven't gotten very far in to it so I haven't been able to explore the life events very much. But looking at the long term impact of "what if I died/what if I had life insurance (and what term)" is very helpful to explore.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance and financial independence

#63

Post by jaclaz »

scubakid wrote: post #26
xtracto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it, filled up all the data and the end screen with a "plan" stopped 1 year after my current age with chart lines looking kind of botched. I think some calculations may be wrong or something.

Hmm, this sounds like the kind of thing that could happen if you have a huge percentage value in an expense or tax input by mistake, or something along those lines that could create an immediate bankruptcy scenario. If you double-check everything though and think there is a more sinister issue at play, I'd be happy to look into it and/or help troubleshoot.

JFYI, maybe it is just me, but in Assets ->House you have:

Effective yearly tax rate

Yearly maintenance costs

Yearly insurance rate

I automatically visualize "rate" as a percentage but I see "costs" as being expressed in actual money, so I inserted (believed to be inserting) 2,000 Euro in maintenance costs which of course ended up being 2,000% of the asset value.

Quickest bankrupt ever!

Maybe Yearly Maintenance Rate would be less prone to possible errors?

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance and financial independence

#65

Post by dr_orpheus »

scubakid wrote: post #50
neogodless wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - had to dig in a bit to find that, and it's a strange default, but it does have the options you need.

Yeah I go back and forth on what the default should be with regard to adjusting values for inflation. I have seen other planners do it this way, and perhaps one of the reasons why is so that you don't look at a high projected portfolio value 40 or 60 years down the road and think you're doing amazing, when in reality those values have much less purchasing power than they would today.

I agree with the choice of presenting in today's dollars by default is more helpful when actually planning. In the deterministic planning it has the note at the top for "All Values in Today's Currency" but I don't see that in the Advanced Simulation and I think it would be helpful to have that reminder on all of the projection graphs so you don't forget what money you are looking at.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance and financial independence

#66

Post by scubakid »

trailrunner46 wrote: post #51

This is very slick and well executed. I especially appreciate the thought that went into data transfer (making it opt in, otherwise stays client side). I have a CFA and have been in finance for a while and have maintained a spreadsheet but honestly this does it better so I will use and support you. I wish more people would take a long view with their financial wellness, maybe I can convince a few friends to see the i…

Much appreciated! And yeah before building this, I was surprised there weren't already more tools that can show you a nuanced view of what the future may hold and the ways various decisions affect that picture... and the complexity of the spreadsheet I had been playing around with eventually became untenable haha. Thanks for the UI feedback so far, and since you've been in finance for a while I'll be very curious to hear more of your thoughts as you dig further into the app.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance and financial independence

#67

Post by scubakid »

jaclaz wrote: post #63
scubakid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, this sounds like the kind of thing that could happen if you have a huge percentage value in an expense or tax input by mistake, or something along those lines that could create an immediate bankruptcy scenario. If you double-check everything though and think there is a more sinister issue at play, I'd be happy to look into it and/or help troubleshoot.

JFYI, maybe it is just me, but in Assets ->House you have: Effective yearly tax rate Yearly maintenance costs Yearly insurance rate I automatically visualize "rate" as a percentage but I see "costs" as being expressed in actual money, so I inserted ( believed to be inserting ) 2,000 Euro in maintenance costs which of course ended up being 2,000% of the asset value. Quickest bankrupt ever! Maybe Yearly Maintenance Rat…

Ah good call. I see how that can be confusing. Hopefully I'll also be able to add in a system where you can toggle some of these inputs between percent and fixed value as well.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance and financial independence

#70

Post by scubakid »

neogodless wrote: post #54
scubakid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the premium / monetization aspect is something I'm still open to suggestions on. I knew I wanted most functionality to be free, so that everyone could use the tool to develop insights about their potential life trajectory and trade-offs between different decisions, and I didn't want anyone to feel priced out of that experience. Likewise, I didn't want to bombard people with ads, and would never want to collec…

There's also some uncertainty around persistence of data if I start a paid plan (or trial) but do not continue. Does the data I'd entered thus far get purged, and I would have to re-enter it if I picked the plan back up? I feel like this kind of tool might be something I'd update once a quarter or once a year, but not want to pay for every month. But if my data is deleted in between uses, it's also a lot less useful.…

If you go to cancel a subscription, there should be a modal that pops up warning that persisted data will be removed if you continue to cancel.

And yeah I see your point on wanting to come back and update things periodically. Is this perhaps where the yearly / lifetime plan options make more sense? Or are those priced too steeply in your estimation?

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