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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: aceyou on February 06, 2019, 06:33:03 PM

Title: Bond Question for a FIRE project in my Math Class
Post by: aceyou on February 06, 2019, 06:33:03 PM
Hey MMMers

I'm a math teacher, and on Friday, I'm starting a 6 day project with my STEM Algebra 2 class on FIRE, using what we've learned about exponentials and statistical analysis to create retirement projections. 

For day 1, I to do their own analysis and determine the growth rate of Stocks, Bonds, Housing, and Gold, using historical data. 

I have data for everything...except BONDS.  Can anyone help by giving  me a link to a website that shows year vs bond price of some total bond index?  I feel like it shouldn't be hard to find, but I can't find it.  For example, Vanguard Total Bond...what price was it selling for on January 1 for the past 20 years?  Or something like that. 

I'll keep looking, but any help would be appreciated. 

Here's the Project Daily Plan, for those interested:
Day 1: Compare a few asset Classes....Stocks, Bonds, Housing, Gold.
Day 2: Explore the Trinity Charts and learn how to read them + the Shockingly Simple Math of Early Retirement Chart from MMM
Day 3-5: Pick two careers.  Find research their pay.  Run the numbers for a 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% savings rate to see how much you'd have to live on to retire in various numbers of years. 
Day 6: Present your data to the class for your two careers/savings rates, and explain what career/savings rate combo you'd pick if you had to choose today.
Title: Re: Bond Question for a FIRE project in my Math Class
Post by: Firehazard on February 07, 2019, 08:00:19 PM
I wish you were my math teacher in 1982.
Title: Re: Bond Question for a FIRE project in my Math Class
Post by: secondcor521 on February 07, 2019, 11:41:42 PM
You can get a year at a time here:

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/tools/pricehistorysearch?radio=1&results=get&FundType=VanguardFunds&FundIntExt=INT&FundId=0084&Sc=0&fundName=0084&fundValue=0084&radiobutton2=1&beginDate=01%2F01%2F1987&endDate=01%2F01%2F2019&year=#res

This is for Vanguard Total Bond Index Fund Investor Shares, which started on 12/11/1986.
Title: Re: Bond Question for a FIRE project in my Math Class
Post by: Linea_Norway on February 08, 2019, 02:01:50 AM
I wish you were my math teacher in 1982.

Yes, what a chance to teach a group of young people about this concept. Maybe 1 or 2 will remember it when they grow older.

Is is an option to add education cost to the project? Like a career in the trades vs a career as a PhD?
Title: Re: Bond Question for a FIRE project in my Math Class
Post by: aceyou on February 12, 2019, 04:26:57 PM
I wish you were my math teacher in 1982.

Yes, what a chance to teach a group of young people about this concept. Maybe 1 or 2 will remember if when they grow older.

Is is an option to add education cost to the project? Like a career in the trades vs a career as a PhD?

Hi Linda,

Yea, I'm lucky to have the platform to share the information. 

Education cost would be a great thing to add in there in the future.  It'd be fun to compare a 30-40k job that you can do right out of high school vs a 60k job that you can start after 4 years college vs something like a doctor that pays far more, but you can't really get earning till your almost 30.  It'd be fun to figure out where the break even dates are. 
Title: Re: Bond Question for a FIRE project in my Math Class
Post by: CCCA on February 12, 2019, 11:54:50 PM
that sounds like a great idea. 


You can get historical bond data from robert shiller's website:
http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm



Title: Re: Bond Question for a FIRE project in my Math Class
Post by: Linea_Norway on February 13, 2019, 01:23:29 AM
I wish you were my math teacher in 1982.

Yes, what a chance to teach a group of young people about this concept. Maybe 1 or 2 will remember if when they grow older.

Is is an option to add education cost to the project? Like a career in the trades vs a career as a PhD?

Hi Linda,

Yea, I'm lucky to have the platform to share the information. 

Education cost would be a great thing to add in there in the future.  It'd be fun to compare a 30-40k job that you can do right out of high school vs a 60k job that you can start after 4 years college vs something like a doctor that pays far more, but you can't really get earning till your almost 30.  It'd be fun to figure out where the break even dates are.

I have heard podcasts about very well educated people who at the age of 28 start working with an enormous study debt. It takes them 7 years or so before they can start saving money.