Author Topic: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (info on calculator updates)  (Read 23422 times)

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Hi all,
I've been working on a few different FI-related web tools and I wanted to share the latest one that I've been kicking around for awhile and finally finished a version that I felt was complete enough to share with the forum here:

https://engaging-data.com/fire-calculator/

It has both a fixed returns approach (e.g. what if returns are 5% (real) annually) and a historical cycles approach (using a cFIRESim-like approach of looking at sequential sets of years starting from 1871 to 2015).
Some things it has that other calculators I've seen don't have:
  • ability to specify different spending in retirement than in the accumulation phase
  • ability to model income growth
  • view the split between accumulated savings and accumulated returns
  • probabilistic approach to future returns to encompass variability in when you achieve F
Anyway, I hope that people can find it useful.  I also appreciate any feedback both in terms of the functionality as well as the user interface and usability. There's also always good bug reports here as well.  So any comments/feedback/suggestions are welcome.

« Last Edit: November 09, 2018, 11:03:55 AM by CCCA »

Dicey

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 22319
  • Age: 66
  • Location: NorCal
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2018, 06:09:23 AM »
Yet another example of the awesome caliber of people on this forum! Thanks for creating and generously sharing this, CCCA! It will be interesting to see what kinds of results people come up with.

Penn42

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 267
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2018, 07:40:32 AM »
Thank you for making and sharing this!  The one screenshot looks beautiful and I'll definitely be messing around with it later!

SquashingDebt

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 441
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2018, 07:41:18 AM »
Nice!  Both models project 12-13 years until I can FIRE (44 years old).  Not too shabby.

One suggestion - I was a little confused at the beginning about whether to use post-tax or pre-tax income.  Maybe put "Current post-tax income" as the label instead of just "Current income"?

teen persuasion

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1226
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2018, 07:57:16 AM »
Nice to see my projection of just a few more years confirmed.

I was getting a funky graph output at less than ~2 years to FIRE.  I have age 51 now, and sometimes it would say median FIRE age =53 (plus 4 years) and pinpoint 55 on the chart.  The graph would cut off at 53.  If I tweaked the input to push it out a bit, say to 2.4 years, then everything displayed correctly.  I played with different retirement spend amounts, SWR, saving amount, start investment amounts: always got wonky ~2 or less years.

fuzzy math

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1726
  • Age: 42
  • Location: PNW
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2018, 08:02:45 AM »
Thank you thank you for the awesome tool!! I love the 25, 75 and 90th percentile data points which are excluded on most other calculators.

DreamFIRE

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2018, 09:27:58 AM »
Taxes are part of spending, so include them.

The retirement savings graph completely disappears when I switch from fixed percentage to historical cycles.  Using Chrome 68.  Javascript is enabled.  IE didn't even show the graphs at all.  Tried an older version of Firefox, and then it worked properly.   Tried incognito window in Chrome, and that works.  But the results I get are pretty wacky with the historical cycles.  At one point, my investments were greater than my target, and it gave me a target retirement age of 72.

Edit:  It looks like the historical cycles have a problem when you have a short time, less than 2 years, to retirement.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2018, 01:13:47 PM by DreamFIRE »

the_fixer

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1252
  • Location: Colorado
  • mind on my money money on my mind
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2018, 10:16:40 AM »
It works well but i can see a bunch of people forgetting about the other stuff that comes out of their paycheck and showing a higher savings rate.

Not sure how to really capture it I know it is spending but might be easier to use take home pay

« Last Edit: August 04, 2018, 11:08:19 AM by the_fixer »

Dave1442397

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1646
  • Location: NJ
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2018, 10:46:17 AM »
When you hover over "Current Spending", it asks you to enter the amount you expect to spend annually in retirement, not current spending.

Nice tool to play around with, though. Thanks for sharing.

Abe

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2647
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2018, 12:27:24 PM »
Great calculator, it's very well done and the graphs give a good explanation. Thanks for making it!


Zola.

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 421
  • Location: UK
  • Let's do this.
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #10 on: August 04, 2018, 12:53:08 PM »
Nice bit of work CCCA !

MDM

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 11477
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #11 on: August 04, 2018, 02:15:00 PM »
One suggestion - I was a little confused at the beginning about whether to use post-tax or pre-tax income.  Maybe put "Current post-tax income" as the label instead of just "Current income"?
Taxes are part of spending, so include them.
Both good points.

E.g., looking at the default numbers a single W-2 person living in Kansas with $60K gross income would have ~$46,325 after taxes, SS, and medicare.  If other expenses are $45K/yr then only $1,325/yr gets invested.

Secondary issues include how much of current and future savings are traditional, Roth, and taxable.  You'll have to decide on precision vs. simplicity.

Tool looks very nice!

ETA: Ah, I see if one hovers over the words, more info appears.  Didn't see those when going directly to the numbers.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2018, 02:17:09 PM by MDM »

aceyou

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1669
  • Age: 40
    • Life is Good - Aceyou's Journal
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #12 on: August 04, 2018, 05:37:18 PM »
very dynamic.  Well done!

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #13 on: August 04, 2018, 10:30:58 PM »
thank you all for the kind words and I'm glad that you are finding it useful and interesting.

I'll check on the some of the issues that have been brought up.  Thanks for the bug reports and suggestions. 


I think I want the calculator to be most accessible to relative beginners to FI, in part, because I think that's the biggest audience and it will help the most people.  But if there are suggestions for options to implement that can be useful but still relatively easy to understand, I'll see what I can do.

thanks!


Edited to add: I think i've fixed the issues with the historical graph when retirement is less than a few years away.  I also made the instruction popover open at the beginning just so you know you can hover over the labels for more instructions.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2018, 11:39:07 PM by CCCA »

DreamFIRE

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #14 on: August 05, 2018, 10:42:36 AM »
Edited to add: I think i've fixed the issues with the historical graph when retirement is less than a few years away.

Yep, looks good now.

MissNancyPryor

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 492
  • The Stewardess is Flying the Plane!
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #15 on: August 05, 2018, 10:48:08 AM »
Thanks for posting!


CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #16 on: August 05, 2018, 11:24:32 AM »
Thanks everyone. If you have friends and family who you think can benefit from this please share it widely. I’d love it to be useful to as many folks as possible.

SwordGuy

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8955
  • Location: Fayetteville, NC
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #17 on: August 05, 2018, 12:55:27 PM »
  @CCCA   Can't read a chunk of the screen on Edge.  The instructions for the help button on the top line (I) show up and won't go away.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 01:18:08 PM by SwordGuy »

katsiki

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2015
  • Age: 43
  • Location: La.
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #18 on: August 05, 2018, 01:31:09 PM »
Awesome - thanks!

Question: would there be a way to factor in social security easily by modifying my numbers?  As is, the growth continues wildly which is nice.  In reality, I would need less if factoring in SS.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 01:33:46 PM by katsiki »

DreamFIRE

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593

Penn42

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 267
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #20 on: August 05, 2018, 05:43:51 PM »
This is super fun to mess around with and extremely motivating!  I put in fixed percentages of 6% and 1.8% and I'm still potentially retired in 8 years.  This is my first year of saving too.  Also really drives the point home about your expenses.  Thanks again!

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #21 on: August 05, 2018, 11:21:30 PM »
  @CCCA   Can't read a chunk of the screen on Edge.  The instructions for the help button on the top line (I) show up and won't go away.

Thanks, I think i figured out a way to get rid of that.  I assume you are viewing on mobile (phone or tablet).  It's not as easy to use on those devices as on a computer. 

Awesome - thanks!

Question: would there be a way to factor in social security easily by modifying my numbers?  As is, the growth continues wildly which is nice.  In reality, I would need less if factoring in SS.


I guess the best way to include social security here is to subtract it from your retirement spending.  This would be the net spending required that would need to be supported from your retirement savings, since the rest would come from SS.  It also depends on how old you are as to whether you want to include SS numbers.  If you are retiring at 35, then SS is far away so you'll need to support yourself for awhile without it, while if you are retiring at 60, then maybe you'd just include it.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 11:32:55 PM by CCCA »

katsiki

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2015
  • Age: 43
  • Location: La.
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #22 on: August 06, 2018, 06:57:56 AM »
  @CCCA   Can't read a chunk of the screen on Edge.  The instructions for the help button on the top line (I) show up and won't go away.

Thanks, I think i figured out a way to get rid of that.  I assume you are viewing on mobile (phone or tablet).  It's not as easy to use on those devices as on a computer. 

Awesome - thanks!

Question: would there be a way to factor in social security easily by modifying my numbers?  As is, the growth continues wildly which is nice.  In reality, I would need less if factoring in SS.


I guess the best way to include social security here is to subtract it from your retirement spending.  This would be the net spending required that would need to be supported from your retirement savings, since the rest would come from SS.  It also depends on how old you are as to whether you want to include SS numbers.  If you are retiring at 35, then SS is far away so you'll need to support yourself for awhile without it, while if you are retiring at 60, then maybe you'd just include it.

Thanks.  The bolded part is what I was hoping you would say.  Something simple to approximate it.

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #23 on: August 06, 2018, 05:28:38 PM »
Hi all,
I've updated the calculator to now include the 3rd type of analysis a Monte Carlo simulation which draws annual returns from a distribution in order to project returns going forward. 

The default is to pick from the historical distribution for stock and bond returns and not surprisingly, it leads to similar options.

Another option is to specify the mean of stock and bond returns and the calculator shifts the distribution up or down and then picks from that new distribution of stock/bond returns.  For example instead of 8.1% average real returns (which is historical), you specify 5% average real returns going forward.  This then shifts the real return distribution by about 3% and draws are made from this new distribution. 

The model runs 2000 simulations and then calculates the percentiles based off of these 2000 runs.

try it out and let me know what you think!

Lukim

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 130
  • Location: Expat in Asia
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #24 on: August 07, 2018, 01:41:39 AM »
That was interesting.

The calculator said I was FIRE 12 years ago - which is probably correct but makes me wonder why I go to the office every day!

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #25 on: August 07, 2018, 10:04:08 AM »
That was interesting.

The calculator said I was FIRE 12 years ago - which is probably correct but makes me wonder why I go to the office every day!

Have you been saving for FIRE this whole time?  Do you have like 75X your expected expenses saved up?  Are you shooting for a 1% withdrawal rate?

CalBal

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1155
  • Location: US
  • Dont Panic
    • Journal
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #26 on: August 07, 2018, 12:04:08 PM »
Nice looking calculator @CCCA ! One thing I notice - when you run it with the Monte Carlo simulations, the only thing that changes the AGE to retirement in the text at the upper left of the graph, is the current age. Any other changes and the age stays the same (I think). It is correct on the graph, but not in the text sentence "In 2000 simulations, X is the median retirement age (y years)." (The years is also correct here, it's just the age that isn't.)

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #27 on: August 07, 2018, 12:30:57 PM »
Nice looking calculator @CCCA ! One thing I notice - when you run it with the Monte Carlo simulations, the only thing that changes the AGE to retirement in the text at the upper left of the graph, is the current age. Any other changes and the age stays the same (I think). It is correct on the graph, but not in the text sentence "In 2000 simulations, X is the median retirement age (y years)." (The years is also correct here, it's just the age that isn't.)


thanks for catching that bug.  I think I've fixed it now. 

COEE

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 611
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #28 on: August 07, 2018, 11:22:47 PM »
I took a look at it earlier this evening.  Just confirms my beliefs that I'm 7-12 years away from FIRE.  I really like the simplicity as well.  I know how much I'm saving and spending.  Enter them in the computer and boom... monte carlo is done!

Lukim

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 130
  • Location: Expat in Asia
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #29 on: August 08, 2018, 09:34:00 PM »
Have you been saving for FIRE this whole time?  Do you have like 75X your expected expenses saved up?  Are you shooting for a 1% withdrawal rate?
[/quote]


Well I guess I take a conservative approach.  I think it is 62.5 X my expected expenses saved - so that is a 1.6% withdrawal rate.


Do you think I am safe to FIRE now?

MDM

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 11477
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #30 on: August 08, 2018, 09:45:28 PM »
Well I guess I take a conservative approach.  I think it is 62.5 X my expected expenses saved - so that is a 1.6% withdrawal rate.

Do you think I am safe to FIRE now?
Absent a war in your country of residence/investment (see Table 3 in https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/51221330.pdf), and based only on the numbers given, yes.

Abe Froman

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 194
  • Location: Greater Chicago
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #31 on: August 09, 2018, 05:32:40 AM »
Beautiful calculators !!! Thank you @CCCA !
And I realize having been in software as well - the moment you put anything out - feature creep comes in. So I will jump on that bandwagon and pile-on !!!

With respect to possible Projection Methods - is there an opportunity to identify the proportion of asset classes such as LCG, LCV, SCG, SCV, REIT, etc etc, in addition to Historical and MonteCarlo? This would be similar to what FireCalc has on their Portfolio page. One could also possibly build both a Historical and a Monte Carlo version for this 'Mixed Portfolio' approach.

I ask only because my own personal study through historical data suggests that a mix of asset classes will (of course over the long term) provide a better return and lesser volatility than a flat Equity/Bond percentage.

BTW - I showed this to a few co-workers and their eyes bugged out of their heads. Possibly because of the cool sleek sexy look - but most likely because of the realization of what the data meant to them.

Thanks again - perhaps an idea for version 2.x.x.x

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #32 on: August 09, 2018, 02:35:32 PM »
I wanted to share here that my calculator got retweeted by MMM himself, which was very cool.  It's exciting to get some validation the one of the founders/early proponents of FIRE.

https://twitter.com/mrmoneymustache/status/1026975454568185856

Well I guess I take a conservative approach.  I think it is 62.5 X my expected expenses saved - so that is a 1.6% withdrawal rate.

Do you think I am safe to FIRE now?
Absent a war in your country of residence/investment (see Table 3 in https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/51221330.pdf), and based only on the numbers given, yes.

question is do you think it's safe to FIRE now and do you think you'll actually do it?  You could put all your money into cash and probably be fine (though I'm not suggesting that would be ideal).

Beautiful calculators !!! Thank you @CCCA !
And I realize having been in software as well - the moment you put anything out - feature creep comes in. So I will jump on that bandwagon and pile-on !!!

With respect to possible Projection Methods - is there an opportunity to identify the proportion of asset classes such as LCG, LCV, SCG, SCV, REIT, etc etc, in addition to Historical and MonteCarlo? This would be similar to what FireCalc has on their Portfolio page. One could also possibly build both a Historical and a Monte Carlo version for this 'Mixed Portfolio' approach.

I ask only because my own personal study through historical data suggests that a mix of asset classes will (of course over the long term) provide a better return and lesser volatility than a flat Equity/Bond percentage.

BTW - I showed this to a few co-workers and their eyes bugged out of their heads. Possibly because of the cool sleek sexy look - but most likely because of the realization of what the data meant to them.

Thanks again - perhaps an idea for version 2.x.x.x

Thanks for the compliment and also the suggestion.  It's not something on my radar right now, but perhaps it'll be on the list of potential upgrades in version 2. 

« Last Edit: August 09, 2018, 02:38:16 PM by CCCA »

OurTown

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1372
  • Age: 54
  • Location: Tennessee
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #33 on: August 09, 2018, 02:44:06 PM »
Really good work.  I never cease to be amazed by the incredible knowledge base and talents of the posters here.

Oh, and the Oracle says, "6.2 years."  I'll take that action.

DreamFIRE

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #34 on: August 09, 2018, 03:32:05 PM »
I guess the best way to include social security here is to subtract it from your retirement spending.  This would be the net spending required that would need to be supported from your retirement savings, since the rest would come from SS.

That would work if you plan to start receiving SS benefits (and/or pension) the same year that you FIRE, but not if you won't receive those benefits until 15 years after FIRE.  So that method of subtracting the benefit from retirement spending won't work for most people here.

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #35 on: August 09, 2018, 04:17:23 PM »
I guess the best way to include social security here is to subtract it from your retirement spending.  This would be the net spending required that would need to be supported from your retirement savings, since the rest would come from SS.

That would work if you plan to start receiving SS benefits (and/or pension) the same year that you FIRE, but not if you won't receive those benefits until 15 years after FIRE.  So that method of subtracting the benefit from retirement spending won't work for most people here.


yes, that's true.  So if you are far from collecting SS, you need to decide how much you want to save up before FIRE'ing.  The conservative thing to do is just assume you won't get SS and FIRE on that amount.  This is primarily a pre-retirement calculator, i.e. it tells you how long it'll take before you get to some FIRE threshold.  But what that FIRE threshold is depends on a few things (including income after retirement).  You can always use the Post-retirement success calculator to determine what FIRE threshold you feel most comfortable with.

DreamFIRE

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator
« Reply #36 on: August 09, 2018, 04:39:20 PM »
You can always use the Post-retirement success calculator to determine what FIRE threshold you feel most comfortable with.
Yeah, I actually linked to it a few posts back in this thread.  I'm pretty comfortable with the results, especially when adding in SS benefits after 15 years - there's no red on the graph.

beer-man

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 121
Great job thank you. Can you make an app of that?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ender

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7402
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #38 on: August 10, 2018, 06:47:00 AM »
"post-tax income" is weird because my 401k is pretax, so I have to add it into the "post-tax" category.

It might be nice to make it more clearly "retirement savings" rather than the  weird "post-tax income" approach.

This made me look up our actual investment numbers. Wow! That's a lot more than I would have thought!

DreamFIRE

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #39 on: August 10, 2018, 07:55:40 AM »
"post-tax income" is weird because my 401k is pretax, so I have to add it into the "post-tax" category.

It might be nice to make it more clearly "retirement savings" rather than the  weird "post-tax income" approach.

This made me look up our actual investment numbers. Wow! That's a lot more than I would have thought!

You account for the tax on the 401K in the retirement spending field.

You have a lot more stash than you thought you did?

ender

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7402
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #40 on: August 10, 2018, 08:14:36 AM »
You account for the tax on the 401K in the retirement spending field.

I mean that the input options are:

  • posttax income
  • annual spending

Those are the only fields you can edit, so if you have pretax savings like a 401k you have to manually add it into the "post-tax income" field. For example, if you make $5k/month after tax and put $1500 into your 401k pretax, you'd actually put $6500 into the "post-tax income" category even though your post-tax income is $5000.

Cezil

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 225
  • Age: 37
  • Location: Great Lakes region
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #41 on: August 10, 2018, 08:24:19 AM »
I look forward to playing around with this when I get home later, it sounds like a really helpful tool! :)

mathlete

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2070
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #42 on: August 10, 2018, 08:32:45 AM »
Cool utility! It gives me roughly the same answer that my own personal model does, so that's reassuring.

frugaldevil

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 39
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #43 on: August 10, 2018, 10:47:00 AM »
You account for the tax on the 401K in the retirement spending field.

I mean that the input options are:

  • posttax income
  • annual spending

Those are the only fields you can edit, so if you have pretax savings like a 401k you have to manually add it into the "post-tax income" field. For example, if you make $5k/month after tax and put $1500 into your 401k pretax, you'd actually put $6500 into the "post-tax income" category even though your post-tax income is $5000.

@ender -- I think the main piece of data you have to get right is the savings amount. I just set up my income and current spending to represent my actual level of savings (pre- and post-tax). I haven't played with it yet, but my guess is that as long as the savings number is the same, your results will be the same. I.e., 100k income and 50k current spending will give you same answers as 150k income and 100k spending.

sisto

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1084
  • Age: 55
  • Location: Sacramento, CA
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #44 on: August 10, 2018, 12:52:07 PM »
Very cool simple calculator. It definitely correlates my numbers. Depending on which mode I use it says I'm 2.8-3.1 years out. That aligns nicely with my plan to retire from Mega Corp via rule of 75 when I'm eligible June 7, 2021. It also assumes no Social Security which for my wife and I combined will be about half of what we need.

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #45 on: August 10, 2018, 01:21:15 PM »
You account for the tax on the 401K in the retirement spending field.

I mean that the input options are:

  • posttax income
  • annual spending
Those are the only fields you can edit, so if you have pretax savings like a 401k you have to manually add it into the "post-tax income" field. For example, if you make $5k/month after tax and put $1500 into your 401k pretax, you'd actually put $6500 into the "post-tax income" category even though your post-tax income is $5000.

@ender -- I think the main piece of data you have to get right is the savings amount. I just set up my income and current spending to represent my actual level of savings (pre- and post-tax). I haven't played with it yet, but my guess is that as long as the savings number is the same, your results will be the same. I.e., 100k income and 50k current spending will give you same answers as 150k income and 100k spending.

yes, you are sort of correct about that.  The savings amount is the main thing that goes into the calculation, so if you tweak the income and spending numbers to get the right saving number you should be mostly good.  The income number + the income growth number does affect how fast your savings grows though.  Your example of the 100-50 vs 150-100 will get the first year correct, but at a non-zero income growth, savings will increase faster in the 2nd example compared to the first. 

ender

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7402
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #46 on: August 10, 2018, 05:51:25 PM »
@ender -- I think the main piece of data you have to get right is the savings amount. I just set up my income and current spending to represent my actual level of savings (pre- and post-tax). I haven't played with it yet, but my guess is that as long as the savings number is the same, your results will be the same. I.e., 100k income and 50k current spending will give you same answers as 150k income and 100k spending.

I know that.

It's just really weird to have to put pretax savings into a posttax income description.

Maybe my problem with this is having a UX background where things that aren't clear but could be irrationally bothers me... :-)

dodojojo

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 806
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #47 on: August 10, 2018, 08:26:58 PM »
Don't like this calculator--it doesn't tell me I can retire now.

Otherwise, great work.

Dancin'Dog

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1759
  • Location: Here & There
Re: A new interactive "When can I FIRE?" calculator (MMM tweeted about it!)
« Reply #48 on: August 10, 2018, 10:23:00 PM »
CCCA,


Thanks for another great tool that's so simple to use.  You've made it so easy for us to consider a wide variety of choices without having crunch numbers, and without having to worry about double checking the math.  :)




Btw, it's amazing how rich I'll be when I'm 102 years old! 



« Last Edit: August 10, 2018, 10:35:18 PM by GreenEggs »

CCCA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 631
  • Location: Bay Area, California
  • born before the 80's
    • FI programming
@ender -- I think the main piece of data you have to get right is the savings amount. I just set up my income and current spending to represent my actual level of savings (pre- and post-tax). I haven't played with it yet, but my guess is that as long as the savings number is the same, your results will be the same. I.e., 100k income and 50k current spending will give you same answers as 150k income and 100k spending.

I know that.

It's just really weird to have to put pretax savings into a posttax income description.

Maybe my problem with this is having a UX background where things that aren't clear but could be irrationally bothers me... :-)
Sorry for the confusion. The box should represent your income with taxes removed. That’s why I called it post tax income.  But it also includes your employer contribution to 401k.

If you can think of a better name for it, let me know.