Nice! this is the closest to what I have been wanting to build for myself.
Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
61–70 of 294 posts
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you prefer to see those sandbox examples configured differently? Or would you rather see a different and more nuanced kind of sandbox system where it asks you some questions first and constructs an example based on your responses? Oh and to answer your question on DB vs DC -- if you're talking about the workplace pension cash-flow priority, that would be for modeling Defined Contribution pensions. For DB, that'…
I came here to say the same thing. Defined benefit pensions are very rare these days in the UK. Also I have to add that your sentences saying, "workplace pension cash-flow priority" and " corresponding income stream" are very confusing. I think the figures for the UK example are not great. Living expenses, health care, and medical expenses are a lot larger than seems correct. Also you should probably put a tool tip d…
Display currency is more of a global setting (About You section), and iirc the Australian sandbox example should already be using AUD there(?)
When you add a new account or cash-flow priority for super contributions, the choices should have subtitles distinguishing Concessional from Non-Concessional. But sounds like there are some other places it would be helpful to show those subtitles too?
Always happy to tweak/update the sandbox examples based on what folks would like to see. Any good data sources you'd recommend for more typical UK expense figures?
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#63Some feedback: - I filled in a bunch of data. I closed the window. I then went back to the website, it tells me that it has recovered my previous session, and it gives me the option to either "Remove data" or "Upgrade now". I want to use the recovered session. I guess that's not allowed? It's really jarring to put it on the user to actively click a button that deletes the data that they have painstakingly entered jus…
Thanks for the detailed feedback! I appreciate you checking out the tool. And sorry to hear you ran into trouble with the sandbox. It should warn about unsaved data if you try to close the tab. Did that not happen in your case? In the past, if you closed it, that was that. But a couple people slipped through the cracks and said it would have been much better if a recovery mechanism existed. So now it does haha... but…
> ... it would have been much better if a recovery mechanism existed
I didn't get a warning and it's definitely better to have a recovery mechanism... if you can use it.
> I just couldn't think of a good way to implement it that wouldn't be easy to tamper with
I wouldn't initially waste time trying to address those who'd go through the effort of tampering with it. It's something to address when you have proof that it's a real problem.
> this is where the Generate Income option on a House asset (real assets column) comes into play.
I missed that.
> Oh right, and the effective tax rate metric is customizable.
I played around a bit with tax rates, but I definitely did not enter anything close to 60%.
> Do you currently have that set to include things like local/property taxes?
I don't know. I couldn't restore the data!
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#64I just had a play around with this for the first time in a long while (I tried it when it was projectfi), and it's in a really great place - well done!
Love that you support countries other than the US - that's very much appreciated.
What I find when setting up long-term plans like this is that you realize just how much key life decisions affect the outcomes, along with how much uncertainty I have over those life decisions! Being able to explore those permutations is definitely very insightful.
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#65This looks awesome! It's exactly what I've been looking for; not a tool for investment geeks, but a practical, everyday, personal finance app. Just signed up for a trial!
Some feedback I have after I signed up and filled out my finances and financial plan:
- It would be nice to somehow get back to the original wizard that I went through when I signed up. Could swear there were some things such as "spend my remaining income" or whatever that I can't seem to find elsewhere in the app. (EDIT: I found this, it's at the bottom of the Plan page, and was a bit hard to find)
- I'd love to be able to export my data even though I agreed to cloud storage. Maybe that conflicts with something about the way that stuff is stored in the cloud, but just being able to download any of the data, even if it isn't all of it, would be nice. Maybe there is a way to do this, but I haven't figured it out.
- Thank you for providing dark mode!
- I don't know what "Starting Cost Basis" is when adding a Roth IRA, and it would be nice to just have a tooltip explaining it; I have a Roth IRA and kinda know what a cost basis is, but honestly have no clue what "starting cost basis" really means or whether it applies to me. Maybe I should know, but this would also be good learning opportunity for users.
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#66This looks awesome! It's exactly what I've been looking for; not a tool for investment geeks, but a practical, everyday, personal finance app. Just signed up for a trial! Some feedback I have after I signed up and filled out my finances and financial plan: - It would be nice to somehow get back to the original wizard that I went through when I signed up. Could swear there were some things such as "spend my remaining…
> I don't know what "Starting Cost Basis" is when adding a Roth IRA
Cost basis is irrelevant for Roth IRAs since you don't pay gains tax on them. I wonder why this is being asked?
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the detailed feedback! I appreciate you checking out the tool. And sorry to hear you ran into trouble with the sandbox. It should warn about unsaved data if you try to close the tab. Did that not happen in your case? In the past, if you closed it, that was that. But a couple people slipped through the cracks and said it would have been much better if a recovery mechanism existed. So now it does haha... but…
> ... it would have been much better if a recovery mechanism existed I didn't get a warning and it's definitely better to have a recovery mechanism... if you can use it. > I just couldn't think of a good way to implement it that wouldn't be easy to tamper with I wouldn't initially waste time trying to address those who'd go through the effort of tampering with it. It's something to address when you have proof that it…
What browser/OS? (unless you'd rather not share, that's fine too). I just re-tested chrome, safari, and firefox on Mac OS and seems like the close tab warning works as expected. That being said, it's always possible there's some specific flow that's not handled properly, so I'd be curious to hear more details if you remember.
To clarify what I meant on the recovery mechanism, the current implementation is what folks had asked for. afaik it does work(?), but does currently require signing up for the free trial. No worries if that's not for you though; and FWIW you could be right that perhaps it would be better to have a non-tamper-proof time-based permissive restore system if it would reduce friction in the average case.
My guess on effective tax rate is it was likely including property taxes. Adding those to the numerator during retirement when taxable income is usually lower could drive up that number.
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#68Interesting, but I don't understand how it does taxes. I live in a completely different, much more income tax heavy nation than the US. It shows me large tax returns in the simulation which are orders of magnitude higher than what I'm actually getting. How do I disable or change these?
Edit: Found the taxes tab, but it seemingly didn't apply the income tax rate I provided in the plan creation "wizard"?
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#69I just had a play around with this for the first time in a long while (I tried it when it was projectfi), and it's in a really great place - well done! Love that you support countries other than the US - that's very much appreciated. What I find when setting up long-term plans like this is that you realize just how much key life decisions affect the outcomes, along with how much uncertainty I have over those life dec…
Thanks for playing around with the new version! And sounds like it's a good thing I rebranded to ProjectionLab -- that first 'i' in ProjectiFi was way too easy to miss ;)
Is there a certain direction you'd like to see me take the tool from here?
Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
#70This looks awesome! It's exactly what I've been looking for; not a tool for investment geeks, but a practical, everyday, personal finance app. Just signed up for a trial! Some feedback I have after I signed up and filled out my finances and financial plan: - It would be nice to somehow get back to the original wizard that I went through when I signed up. Could swear there were some things such as "spend my remaining…
Thanks for giving it a shot! If you go to the account menu (upper right) > Export, you can export your data as JSON.
The sim uses cost basis as how much of the existing $ in there represents your contributions (as opposed to gains), which is useful to know b/c your contributions to a Roth IRA can be withdrawn tax-free and penalty-free. You should see a corresponding category for that in Plan Settings > Drawdown as well.