Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#201

Post by devinsit » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

false-mirror wrote: post #198

devinsit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The trend of handing over all your data ( especially your financial data) to some nebulous service isn't exactly my favourite. Which is why I built https://ufincs.com , a nebulous service where you hand over all your financial data! Yes, that was a joke. In reality, uFincs is more of a stop-gap between what you seek (native app where you own the data) and what the status quo is (web-based app where your data…

That is a huge "living paycheck to paycheck" upcharge! I get the incentive, but considering how financial planning can be most vital to folks with spotty income, I'd strongly encourage you to bring the price of the monthly plan down. Or perhaps a bare-bones "free" tier folks can use between paid months?

Yep, I agree, it's a pretty big upcharge. That's precisely why our 'free tier' is the 'no account' option (https://ufincs.com/noaccount). I'm not kidding when I say it's the full version of uFincs; the only (real) difference is that you don't have an account to sync to. And if you make sure to never log out (or take the time to export/import your data every time), then you can basically simulate having an account. It's just a free tier of 'inconvenience' rather than 'features' or some such.

But yeah, there's definitely some pricing psychology at play there. Thanks for taking the time to leave some feedback!

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#202

Post by skronch » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

Is there a way to specify the % of income that is allocated to cash holdings vs. investments? The modeller seems to assume that I will keep all future income as cash, which seems unrealistic.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#203

Post by devinsit » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #199

devinsit wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing, the key isn't controlled by me. The key is derived from your account password. If you want some more technical details, feel free to check out https://ufincs.com/policies/security . tl;dr Yes, that browser API is called WebCrypto. As for storage, all data is kept in-browser in local storage (specifically, IndexedDB), until it gets saved to our database. And before it leaves the browser to be saved i…

So, when you change your password, all data flows back to your browser to be decrypted, then gets re-encrypted, and sent back?

Hmm, that's a good question to add to the Security doc!

Not quite. See, we make use of a scheme called envelope encryption. That means we have two separate keys: one to encrypt your data (the 'data encryption key' or DEK) and one to encrypt the DEK (the 'key encryption key' or KEK). We use the KEK to encrypt your DEK to get something called the 'EDEK' (or 'encrypted data encryption key'). The EDEK is what we store in our database.

Something that never changes after you sign up is your DEK. This is completely random and not dependent on your password.

What is dependent on your password is your KEK. So when you change your password, all that actually changes is your KEK. With your new KEK, we just re-encrypt your DEK to get a new EDEK, and we store that new EDEK in our database. Again, the Security doc (https://ufincs.com/policies/security) outlines the basic process.

So no, all your data isn't passed back to the browser to be decrypted and re-encrypted when you change your password, but thanks for the question!

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#204

Post by scubakid » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

skronch wrote: post #202

Is there a way to specify the % of income that is allocated to cash holdings vs. investments? The modeller seems to assume that I will keep all future income as cash, which seems unrealistic.

The way it currently works, the simulation uses income in a given year to cash-flow expenses for that year, and the rest is allocated according to the items you configure in the Financial Goals section. As a simple example, you could define a desired emergency fund of $20k as priority #1, then maximized taxable investments as priority #2... which would mean in any given year, money left over after expenses goes to (A) topping off the emergency fund if needed, then (B) to taxable investments. Does that help add some clarity?

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#205

Post by PascLeRasc » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

holoduke wrote: post #157

Just out of curiousity, Would you become really a happy person when you become so much focused on financials, investments, growth, independence etc I wonder. I personally have a good income. But I do not invest at all. I hate it. I just spend whatever I think is possible and needed for a happy today. And so far money is something I barely have to think about. I see so much people around me busy with cryptos. Busy wit…

You have the right attitude. No, I don't believe anyone gets really into growing their money because they're satisfied with their life. It's a coping mechanism.

However we live in a world where you need to invest at least a little bit. If you can spend 15 minutes at the start of each new job setting up your 401k to 15-20% of your salary, in a target-date fund, you will never have to think about investing ever again.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#206

Post by scubakid » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:30 PM UTC

alfonsodev wrote: post #196

frabjoused wrote: post #87

I would suggest the first step of onboarding should not be the selection of your theme. This is already a long onboarding process and every additional step will lose you users. When you build something you're technically proud of, it makes sense you'd like to show it off, but you have to evaluate its relative importance to your public.

I didn't mind the number of steps, at least is not asking for creating a user before trying. But I'd replace the theme selection with currency selection, much more relevant.

Great point! Currency selector coming soon. Would you recommend demoting the theme selection to like a last step in the onboarding process? Or not showing it at all during onboarding and leaving it for users to find on their own?

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#207

Post by adamdusty » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

goatcode wrote: post #200

dang wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the site guidelines and the FAQ explain that this is not allowed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html The HN community considers it spamming and guards its integrity rather zealously.

Making an account to post something and coincidentally having friends who on their own decided to make accounts to comment is against the rules?

>Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff occasionally, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.

Posting the same site twice in 2 weeks seems more than "occasional", and in my opinion, crosses the line from "look what I made" to self promotion.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#208

Post by Fast_Sasquatch » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:41 PM UTC

It looks pretty but I can't figure out how to add my monthly investment "expenses"? FWIW I currently use firecalc and personalcapital.

Also maybe add a url-save feature like firecalc to the free version?

*edit: I found it, you have to add monthly savings or investments into your Financial Goals

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#209

Post by udev » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

What is a good offline alternative?

I hear Excel, but one needs also to know how an what to compute. Any books/guides in that sense?

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#210

Post by scubakid » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

12ian34 wrote: post #131

Love the idea, enjoyed the interface, but I feel my time was wasted when I only found out the US focus several clicks into the flow. Speaking as someone not from the US, I do wish more websites didn't just assume that all their traffic was coming from the US. You could alleviate this by having a flag on the home page saying "This is really more for Americans only".

Thanks for the feedback. I would love to add better generalization for international use; so far it's just been out of scope for a solo dev to account for all the intricate tax rules that differ from country to country. If you have further suggestions though on additional features that might help to start bridging that gap, feel free to shoot an email to projectifi.io@gmail.com!