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I'm not quite ready to open source this project just yet as I believe I possess some trade secret-level intellectual property. I might be wrong about that, so i

I'm not quite ready to open source this project just yet as I believe I possess some trade secret-level intellectual property. I might be wrong about that, so if anyone can find a calculator that can do what my calculators can do then I'll gladly open it up. That being said this is a 100% client-side app and I'm not collecting anyone's data (other than Google Analytics). I just wanted to share this project here to solicit feedback from smart people and help everyone get a clearer picture of their retirement.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
cfiresim (http://www.cfiresim.com/ http://www.cfiresim.com/) might offer similar functionality you're looking to do, and it's open source. So if you need a public domain based approach to retirement calculations, you might be able to follow what they are doing.
- yeahgoodok 6y ago
  cfiresim runs simulations. I'm more interested in solving for a specific outcome. I looked into adding my withdrawal strategy to their code but that project has been dead for years.
  - fsflyer 6y ago
    For work that's been done on withdrawal strategies, see the Safe Withdrawal Rate series at https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/ https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/ How does your strategy differ from the many ERN evaluates?
    - yeahgoodok 6y ago
      I'm a big fan of that series, mostly because we agree on just about everything. Especially how people tend to get carried away with 'the 4% rule', which is more than a rule-of-thumb than anything. The thing that's most different about my strategy is that it doesn't have a 'memory' of what your past retirement income was. Put simply, you retire every 3 months. A lot of folks get nervous when I say this but in practice, this is in fact how most people behave. For example, consider the case of someone who unfortunately retired just before the COVID crash. Strategies that have a 'memory' intrinsically offer some assurance that you'll probably weather the downturn without decreasing your lifestyle very much. In practice, most folks will 'start over' their retirement just to be safe and reset the memory of their prior payments. In my opinion, if you're not going to trust the assurances of a given strategy then what good is it? Another thing that sets my strategy apart is that it focuses on capital depletion. Most strategies don't have any sort of annuity component and this typically resorts in a binary outcome near the end of the investment horizon -- you're either filthy rich or you went bankrupt years ago (both of these are bad outcomes for me). My strategy is constantly readjusting itself so that you exhaust your savings around 100 years old (or whatever age you set the formula to). This results in better overall effective utilization of savings. I could go on but those are the two biggest things.
      - andrewmcwatters 6y ago
        To add another two cents, maybe consider the fact that some people would rather leave a majority of their estate to future generations rather than focus on capital depletion. I have no intention of burning most of my investments away when I can instead, over a lifetime, teach my children how to manage their resources and insulate them from concerns most others toil away at. I'd instead rather spend as a little as possible.
        yeahgoodok 6y ago
        Even if you spend as little as possible and intend to leave an inheritance, you still must wonder how much you can safely withdraw from your investments, no? Simply wanting a particular outcome is seldom sufficient to make it so.
andrewmcwatters 6y ago
I don't see how you do anything differently than networthify, Personal Capital's Retirement Planner, and everyone else. In fact, you make the exact same mistakes they do, and more, which are critical ones.
- yeahgoodok 6y ago
  Networthify is missing quite a few features. Namely social security, pensions, annuities, taxes, capital depletion. It makes you internalize everything in your head in real, after-tax terms as if inflation and taxes don't exist. Nesteggly is better in this respect because it gives you a picture of your financial future in actual dollar terms. Personal Capital's Retirement Planner is quite a bit different too. For one, it's a Monte Carlo simulator. Two, it assumes your retirement income will remain constant for your entire retirement. Third, to use their calculator they make you sign up, link your accounts and endure the harassment of their financial advisors.
  - andrewmcwatters 6y ago
    You might want to consider providing something that optionally allows you to sign up. There's a lot of details that are required for increasingly better projections, and sometimes people taking a glance at what your software has to offer might not necessarily have time during their lunch hour or on the weekends to fill everything out. Yes, Personal Capital targets sub-HNWIs, but realize they run a business, and if they're targeting you, it's also a sign you're probably doing something right.
    - yeahgoodok 6y ago
      Stop revealing the features of my premium product before it's released. ;)

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

cfiresim (http://www.cfiresim.com/ http://www.cfiresim.com/) might offer similar functionality you're looking to do, and it's open source. So if you need a public domain based approach to retirement calculations, you might be able to follow what they are doing.

yeahgoodok 6y ago
cfiresim runs simulations. I'm more interested in solving for a specific outcome. I looked into adding my withdrawal strategy to their code but that project has been dead for years.
- fsflyer 6y ago
  For work that's been done on withdrawal strategies, see the Safe Withdrawal Rate series at https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/ https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/ How does your strategy differ from the many ERN evaluates?
  - yeahgoodok 6y ago
    I'm a big fan of that series, mostly because we agree on just about everything. Especially how people tend to get carried away with 'the 4% rule', which is more than a rule-of-thumb than anything. The thing that's most different about my strategy is that it doesn't have a 'memory' of what your past retirement income was. Put simply, you retire every 3 months. A lot of folks get nervous when I say this but in practice, this is in fact how most people behave. For example, consider the case of someone who unfortunately retired just before the COVID crash. Strategies that have a 'memory' intrinsically offer some assurance that you'll probably weather the downturn without decreasing your lifestyle very much. In practice, most folks will 'start over' their retirement just to be safe and reset the memory of their prior payments. In my opinion, if you're not going to trust the assurances of a given strategy then what good is it? Another thing that sets my strategy apart is that it focuses on capital depletion. Most strategies don't have any sort of annuity component and this typically resorts in a binary outcome near the end of the investment horizon -- you're either filthy rich or you went bankrupt years ago (both of these are bad outcomes for me). My strategy is constantly readjusting itself so that you exhaust your savings around 100 years old (or whatever age you set the formula to). This results in better overall effective utilization of savings. I could go on but those are the two biggest things.
    - andrewmcwatters 6y ago
      To add another two cents, maybe consider the fact that some people would rather leave a majority of their estate to future generations rather than focus on capital depletion. I have no intention of burning most of my investments away when I can instead, over a lifetime, teach my children how to manage their resources and insulate them from concerns most others toil away at. I'd instead rather spend as a little as possible.
      - yeahgoodok 6y ago
        Even if you spend as little as possible and intend to leave an inheritance, you still must wonder how much you can safely withdraw from your investments, no? Simply wanting a particular outcome is seldom sufficient to make it so.

andrewmcwatters 6y ago

I don't see how you do anything differently than networthify, Personal Capital's Retirement Planner, and everyone else. In fact, you make the exact same mistakes they do, and more, which are critical ones.

yeahgoodok 6y ago
Networthify is missing quite a few features. Namely social security, pensions, annuities, taxes, capital depletion. It makes you internalize everything in your head in real, after-tax terms as if inflation and taxes don't exist. Nesteggly is better in this respect because it gives you a picture of your financial future in actual dollar terms. Personal Capital's Retirement Planner is quite a bit different too. For one, it's a Monte Carlo simulator. Two, it assumes your retirement income will remain constant for your entire retirement. Third, to use their calculator they make you sign up, link your accounts and endure the harassment of their financial advisors.
- andrewmcwatters 6y ago
  You might want to consider providing something that optionally allows you to sign up. There's a lot of details that are required for increasingly better projections, and sometimes people taking a glance at what your software has to offer might not necessarily have time during their lunch hour or on the weekends to fill everything out. Yes, Personal Capital targets sub-HNWIs, but realize they run a business, and if they're targeting you, it's also a sign you're probably doing something right.
  - yeahgoodok 6y ago
    Stop revealing the features of my premium product before it's released. ;)