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Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

projectionlab.com

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Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#261

Post by elteto »

scubakid wrote: post #246
elteto wrote: post #245

Very nice! Small improvement request: when adding a mortgage I can only input 2 decimal places for the interest rate, but it is common for rates to have more places, e.g. 6.615%

Fair point. There's an item on the roadmap for that you can upvote if you like. It should be trivial, I just haven't found the bandwidth to get to it yet. Just out of curiosity, does your scenario change noticeably if you round to 6.62% vs 6.61%?

It probably doesn’t, but it _bugs_ me not being able to put the exact rate ;) you know how we are.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#262

Post by mirrorlake »

scubakid wrote: post #240
dhumph wrote: post #233

It looks very nice. I have used wealthtrace in the past. I see a lot of mentions of various other tools in the thread. You might consider a competition comparison page to distinguish your solution.

That could be a good idea, yeah. I think on the whole, PL is at the point now where my engineering abilities have definitely outstripped my marketing/outreach abilities. So I guess I should spend some time really thinking about how to get the word out more broadly.

I think you'd do well doing a podcast interview with some financial independence folks, if that's in your comfort zone. Understandable if it's not.

Paula Pant gives a great interview, as does Brad Barrett at ChooseFI.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#263

Post by scubakid »

mirrorlake wrote: post #262
scubakid wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be a good idea, yeah. I think on the whole, PL is at the point now where my engineering abilities have definitely outstripped my marketing/outreach abilities. So I guess I should spend some time really thinking about how to get the word out more broadly.

I think you'd do well doing a podcast interview with some financial independence folks, if that's in your comfort zone. Understandable if it's not. Paula Pant gives a great interview, as does Brad Barrett at ChooseFI.

Public speaking is always a bit out of my comfort zone haha, but this year I did go on The FI Show and that turned out to be a pretty good conversation: https://thefishow.com/kyle

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#264

Post by tfsh »

scubakid wrote: post #170
tfsh wrote: post #169

This is awesome! I spent weeks looking for something like this a year back and am very interested! I have some feature requests, if I know you've at least considered these (and are/are not planning them), it would definetly persuade me to pay for the product: - Is there an API or some way to programatically upload a snapshot of my banking data, I don't care if the API is cumbersome, as long as there's way for me to i…

Thanks! I think a good cross-section is already doable :) There isn't a formal API yet, but there are several methods I've exposed on the early access channel to facilitate community plugin development, including the ability to programmatically update objects within PL. Here's an example thread on the discord where a community member has been leveraging those methods to build a Chrome extension that can pull balances…

Thank you for such a thoughtful response! This tool seems great - I'll start my subscription tonight :)

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#265

Post by 999900000999 »

MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #259
999900000999 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be the default, not over 500$ a year when your trial ends.

Have you actually tried the process? Do you know that it defaults to $500 a year, or was that perhaps user error?

Pro defaults to 500$ a year. It should default to monthly IMO. It's more like I'd rather be able to catch a small charge vs having a large surprise

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#266

Post by lippihom »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #36

"ProjectionLab has no link to your real financial accounts and the data you enter stays in your browser unless you choose otherwise. " I don't see why this would be a positive? I'd love an alternative to Personal Capital (since it got bought out), but without a direct connection to my banks/creditcards/etc, that connection just ends up being less secure.

What are you using now instead of Personal Capital? I'm still stuck with them and looking for an alternative.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#267

Post by firewolf34 »

firewolf34 wrote: post #218
newswasboring wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The checkout experience in PL is just standard Paddle checkout, so I imagine the feedback about charging after the free trial applies to everyone who uses Paddle? Yup. It's a manipulative dark pattern. It makes the path of least resistance automatic spending of money rather than making a decision.

Paddle literally just nabbed me for a $40 subscription for another app just a few days ago. I am attempting to get it cancelled through their support, I never even got an email warning me of it at all. If they don't agree to cancel, considering I haven't even launched said app in months, I will dispute it w/ my CC. Madness.

Update: Paddle support got back to me in 24-hours and their emailed link cancelled the payment and put me in touch with an AI that instantly resolved the situation and knew what I was talking about. I was impressed.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#268

Post by doetoe »

scubakid wrote: post #189
MontagFTB wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about $5 for a one week unlock, so I can make quarterly adjustments as necessary? Or, say, $10 for a week during Q1 of the year so I can plan out my taxes for the upcoming year? (While I’m not paying the info is read-only, tempting me to play with it for $5/week.)

Currently you can do $14 for a month of access at a time. Does that scratch this itch? Or is there something about having access for even smaller windows of time that appeals to you? The read-only idea outside of those windows is an interesting idea. I don't have a mechanism for that at the moment, but I'll consider it if some other folks express interest in this kind of plan.

+1 for read-only access

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#269

Post by ericksoa »

Biggest problem with the pricing is that you are selling an expensive tool to cheap bastards that tend to be in your ICP.

Idea: sell this with a course to idiots and call it "how to be nerd rich", and then create the OnlyFans of Finance by letting said idiots subscribe for 5 dollars a month + streaming fee to the kinds of nerds you are marketing this to now.

I offer you this amazing plan at a 0 basis point equity stake. Deal?

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#270

Post by pcchristie »

scubakid wrote: post #202
luke_s wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I feel the same way about the $14 a month. Perhaps a "one shot access pass" or something that lets you in for a few months while you do financial planning may be useful. It might also be a good opportunity to check back in with people later (say in 12 months time) and get them to sign up again, if you can provide them with valuable insights and help them stick to their plan

Do you feel like it's more the price or the billing frequency options that affect the psychology here? To me, a month of planning for the price of a cocktail sounds about right (esp. when compared with traditional advisory services), but perhaps others think in different terms. Or just disagree? haha. Interestingly, I still get messages fairly often from new users that (in their opinion) pricing is actually too low..…

The problem for me is how rarely you'd use it. I could see myself buying this, and using it forever, but only a few times a year. Monthly pricing for quarterly or semi-annual check ins doesn't feel like the right trade off. (I say this as someone who uses Actual Budget monthly).

I looked at your lifetime subscription and was keen on that for the reasons above but $500USD is eye watering.

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