Author Topic: Read if you love excel and new cool things!  (Read 2842 times)

aceyou

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Read if you love excel and new cool things!
« on: September 05, 2016, 08:35:15 PM »
Hi Everyone, I couldn't find an investment calculator that does exactly what I want, so I created my own from scratch.  Here's how you use it:

1.  enter your starting stache amount
2.  enter the % growth you want to project for your portfolio
3.  Enter the specific amount of money you plan to add to the portfolio every year going forward (this is the part that I haven't seen on other online calculators).
4.  Enter the current year and your age
5.  That's it, then it just spits out the stache balance at the end of each year. 

Here's what I'd like the help of the community with:
1.  Is it even helpful that I have created this, or is this already available online and I just couldn't find it?
2.  Can a mathy/excelly type of person verify that I calculated continuous growth correctly.  I think I did, but it's the first time I've ever used that function on excel and I'm not 100% sure. 

Zamboni

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Re: Read if you love excel and new cool things!
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2016, 08:40:17 PM »
Well done! I like how you've color coded the cells to fill in. I did my own convoluted version of this just for myself, buy yours looks slicker.

aceyou

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Re: Read if you love excel and new cool things!
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2016, 08:52:04 PM »
Thanks Zamboni. 

Yeah, one thing that is a little unrealistic though is that the calculator assumes that all of the new investment for each year gets put in right at the beginning of the year.  In reality, most of us are putting small amounts in bi-weekly into our 401K's, Roths, etc.  So, my calculator gives a slightly overinflated number, since in reality capital for each new year is injected throughout the year. 

I didn't want to take the time to figure that out, so as a workaround, I suggest just thinking "hmm, the real number will in actuality be close to, but a little smaller than this"!!

PhysicianOnFIRE

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Re: Read if you love excel and new cool things!
« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2016, 09:20:03 PM »
I created an online Excel based compound interest calculator that allows you to enter a monthly investment.

It can also account for investment fees and tax drag in a taxable account, and gives results based on investing at the beginning or end of the time period. You also get results based on daily, monthly, or annual compounding.

Cheers!
-Physician on FIRE

aceyou

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Re: Read if you love excel and new cool things!
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2016, 05:04:52 PM »
I created an online Excel based compound interest calculator that allows you to enter a monthly investment.

It can also account for investment fees and tax drag in a taxable account, and gives results based on investing at the beginning or end of the time period. You also get results based on daily, monthly, or annual compounding.

Cheers!
-Physician on FIRE

Thanks PhysicianonFIRE.  I don't know where I found it, but I used your calculator already and I really like it.  It's definitely more precise than mine since it takes into account fees/taxes better.  There are just two things that caused me to make my own:

-I won't be consistently investing the same amount each year after year.  The plan is to increase the amount yearly as our incomes grow. 

- I like to see how the portfolio grows over time as I approach FI, and to see how it would grow after FI assuming I don't touch it. 

Thanks again for putting your calculator out there, it's definitely a great tool. 

 

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