I'm not sure what "Safe Withdrawal Rate would give you this percentage of your spending" means. the value for Year 1 is 88.67%. Does this means I can sell some of my stocks and cover 88% of my spending?
Yes. Whatever you have the safe withdrawal rate set to (if you left that as the default, it assumes you withdraw 4% of your stash each year) that column lists the percentage of your annual spending that would be covered by the withdrawal. In the year that column is at or above 100%, if everything you entered into the spreadsheet is correct, you would be FI and could possibly retire.
What does "Total Stash Relative to Spending" mean? My figure is 22.17.
This should be the number you would get if you divide your total stash by the amount you spend in a year. Again, this spreadsheet is set up in "years of take home pay" but you can try using your actual dollar amounts and divide your stash by your spending to see if the answer to that matches up at all with this column. If not, some of the values you plugged into the spreadsheet may be off.
"Total Stash Including gains (years of take-home income)" is 7.32 - I'm guessing my money will grow by 7.32% this year?
Nope, growth will be whatever you set it to in the "Annual Investment Returns After Inflation" box. (Well, real growth will of course be whatever the performance is of the markets or other investments you hold, but the spreadsheet is assuming the growth you tell it to.) This column means your total stash will be the same as multiplying your annual take-home income by 7.32. Same idea as your current 6.25 number, but just updating it for a year from now when your stash has grown.
"Investment Gains This Year (% of one year's take-home Income)" is 39.51% - I'm guessing my take home pay and investment return will grow by 39.51% this year?
Not quite. This is again a percentage of your take home pay. So, if your take home pay is $100,000, this column is saying that your investments will generate $39,510 that year (again, if the real market returns are equal to the assumption you plugged into the Annual Investment Returns box)
If this spreadsheet doesn't work well for you and you'd like to be able to put in actual dollar amounts to make things easier to visualize, I know lots of other forum members have made their own spreadsheets for a variety of things and posted them in the forums over the years. I can't remember which ones are out there but you can try doing a forum search, or maybe someone else will chime in with a link to one.
