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Oh hey, it's you again! I discovered projectionlab (formerly projectfi) on HN a while back and have been loving it. Every other "retirement calculator" I foun

Oh hey, it's you again! I discovered projectionlab (formerly projectfi) on HN a while back and have been loving it. Every other "retirement calculator" I found was a dozen text fields and a simple output graph or two - Projection Lab gave me what I really wanted, which was the ability to do much more involved modeling of various scenarios: - What happens if I buy a house in X years? - What happens if my old company IPOs and I get a windfall of $Y in X years? - What happens if I change assumptions on investment returns or inflation rates? - What happens if I retire at various different ages? - What happens if my salary increases by 2, 5, 10, 30% each year? - What happens if we do this kind of mortgage or that kind of mortgate? - All of the above, but also modeling my in wife's finances? - All of the above, but with beautiful, interactive graphs instead of my ugly spreadsheet outputs - All of the above, but without the several formula typos that I made while building my spreadsheet Anyway, it's amazing, I love it, and nothing else out there really seemed to compare. I found your free plan more than met my needs, but I wound up subscribing just to support it. I'm quite hoping you're able to make this successful long-term so that I can keep using it until I eventually retire. :)

scubakid 3y ago
Thanks so much! I use PL for all my own planning too of course, and keeping it around is very much the plan. Is there a particular direction in which you'd like to see me build from here? The public roadmap is overflowing with ideas at this point, and I'm curious how folks would rack and stack them.
- j45 3y ago
  I like that this is a solo-dev project, but there's probably loke, a good chunk of people who like this tool likely have built some kind of spreadsheet or other thing to get close to it and likely know exactly what they would like to see for certain things. Having the abilty to perhaps build our own models and keep them to ourselves, or maybe have them available to share might not be a bad idea. I'm not sure if this is reporting, or setting up a sequence or frequency of payments, etc. Depends on the backend I suppose.
  - scubakid 3y ago
    Having a little trouble parsing the specific feature ideas here. It seems like one of them may be an ability to share a read-only view of your plans... but on the other(s) I might need a little more detail.
    - ramses0 3y ago
      Plug-ins. "The Modeling Store": * Startup9000 Simulator * ClassicAutosAsInvestments Simulator * My Personal Stamp Collection API Plug-in (not-public, not-for-sale) Basically, theres enough weird stuff out there that could be a component of someone's financial hopes and dreams, that communities could sprout on being able to enhance around a topic. There's also that first step of needing/wanting to be able to API-into the product to explore the idea to see if it's even something that can be modeled.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Being from the UK, having a plugin layer able to differentiate US from UK implications on finances would be extremely useful. But also as a fellow developer I hate to recommend a level of refactoring that might break you!
      - scubakid 3y ago
        have you seen the UK tax template (plan settings > tax) and account types? curious what additional controls / differentiation you'd like to see.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        Ah - no :-) I just read the feature list and didn't dig deeper. Just assumed it was going to be US-only. Impressive if not. How do you keep up?
    - chromatin 3y ago
      > share a read-only view of your plans I think this is because you are conflating "model" and "plan"; whereas the conventional use of plan probably means model, when playing in your Sandbox it looks as if "plan" is model+data. The grandparent poster is describing sharing models.
- fishtoaster 3y ago
  I can't really think of much to add, honestly! Iirc the last time I was using it heavily, the only issue I was having trouble with was modeling drawdowns of existing funds. It kept drawing down my wife's account to build up mine. It didn't affect the overall outcome (we had the same dollar amount together regardless), but it was a little annoying and made it harder to figure out which account was actually running low. That said, it's extremely possible that I was just doing something wrong and just hadn't configured it correctly. Whenever I get back to it, I'll work up a minimal repro case and ask about it in the discord. :)
bobboies 3y ago
Counting the days to pass before reaching that dangling carrot is a disease. The reality is, for richer or poorer, we all retire when we die.
- tills13 3y ago
  Alright Debbie.
  - bobboies 3y ago
    I know it’s a depressing thought—but considering that money can be thought of as a “unit of work”, and so many people are tying it up in stocks of large companies, miles away—praying they won’t get hit by a car before that special day. What about getting units of work to start working right now, instead of hoping some big company will make people’s money “grow” into the future? Invest in local economy. Invest in people. Folks thinking about retirement backwards.
    - sieabahlpark 3y ago
      I'd rather not be unable to work and be poor by "investing in people" and "local economy". They sure as hell don't come to my aid when I need it. You for shit have no idea how bad elder care is in America
      - bobboies 3y ago
        By investing locally and in people I don’t mean spend all your money. But to that end, neither are the big companies going to come to your aid. But your neighbors and local business owners will be MUCH more likely to come to your aid after supporting them and helping them succeed.
      - sieabahlpark 3y ago
        [dead]
geph2021 3y ago
wow! That's a level of personal financial analysis that I've never contemplated doing. It's fantastic that someone has built such a great tool for others, and you get so much value from it. For me personally, I fail to understand the point of doing this level of analysis, at lest for some of the things you listed that seem highly hypothetical and uncertain (e.g. raises, IPOs, even future mortgage rates). I guess that's the nature of any financial forecasting, but this just seems like it's taken to a level that I would not find helpful. Take for example the kind of mortgage to choose, a decision that all home buyers face and can be daunting (there's so much mortgage/lender lingo that is foreign to most people). The "right" answer is to go with a shorter-term, variable rate, because on average you'll pay less interest than longer-term/fixed rates. But that's also the wrong answer for some people who don't want, or can't handle variability in their biggest monthly expense. Layering those factors into an overall retirement calculator/projector just seems like overkill and over complicated for that decision. MHO...
- fishtoaster 3y ago
  Well, I can't speak for most people, but one thing I've been doing is using this modeling as feedback into my budget. 1. Track my current expenses (I use https://lunchmoney.app/ https://lunchmoney.app/, but a spreadsheet works fine). Looks like I'm spending $X/month 2. Build a reasonably complete model of my financial life assuming $X expenses per month (I use ProjectionLab) 3. Do I run out of money before the end of my life? If yes, look at my expense breakdown and look for areas to reduce it (fewer ubers, eat out less, cut back on diamond-encrusted tiaras, etc). My new budget is $Y/mo. Goto 2. 4. Do I have a ton of money left at the end of my life? If yes, I can increase my budget a bit for things I like (more ubers, eat out more, more diamond-encrusted tiaras, etc). I can revisit this over time as my income changes, or my retirement account value changes based on real-world market performance, or I get a windfall, or I get married, etc etc.
  - scubakid 3y ago
    Cutting back on the tiaras before the mocha lattes, huh? Starbucks really has their customer retention on lock ;P

scubakid 3y ago

Thanks so much! I use PL for all my own planning too of course, and keeping it around is very much the plan. Is there a particular direction in which you'd like to see me build from here? The public roadmap is overflowing with ideas at this point, and I'm curious how folks would rack and stack them.

j45 3y ago
I like that this is a solo-dev project, but there's probably loke, a good chunk of people who like this tool likely have built some kind of spreadsheet or other thing to get close to it and likely know exactly what they would like to see for certain things. Having the abilty to perhaps build our own models and keep them to ourselves, or maybe have them available to share might not be a bad idea. I'm not sure if this is reporting, or setting up a sequence or frequency of payments, etc. Depends on the backend I suppose.
- scubakid 3y ago
  Having a little trouble parsing the specific feature ideas here. It seems like one of them may be an ability to share a read-only view of your plans... but on the other(s) I might need a little more detail.
  - ramses0 3y ago
    Plug-ins. "The Modeling Store": * Startup9000 Simulator * ClassicAutosAsInvestments Simulator * My Personal Stamp Collection API Plug-in (not-public, not-for-sale) Basically, theres enough weird stuff out there that could be a component of someone's financial hopes and dreams, that communities could sprout on being able to enhance around a topic. There's also that first step of needing/wanting to be able to API-into the product to explore the idea to see if it's even something that can be modeled.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Being from the UK, having a plugin layer able to differentiate US from UK implications on finances would be extremely useful. But also as a fellow developer I hate to recommend a level of refactoring that might break you!
    - scubakid 3y ago
      have you seen the UK tax template (plan settings > tax) and account types? curious what additional controls / differentiation you'd like to see.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Ah - no :-) I just read the feature list and didn't dig deeper. Just assumed it was going to be US-only. Impressive if not. How do you keep up?
  - chromatin 3y ago
    > share a read-only view of your plans I think this is because you are conflating "model" and "plan"; whereas the conventional use of plan probably means model, when playing in your Sandbox it looks as if "plan" is model+data. The grandparent poster is describing sharing models.
fishtoaster 3y ago
I can't really think of much to add, honestly! Iirc the last time I was using it heavily, the only issue I was having trouble with was modeling drawdowns of existing funds. It kept drawing down my wife's account to build up mine. It didn't affect the overall outcome (we had the same dollar amount together regardless), but it was a little annoying and made it harder to figure out which account was actually running low. That said, it's extremely possible that I was just doing something wrong and just hadn't configured it correctly. Whenever I get back to it, I'll work up a minimal repro case and ask about it in the discord. :)

bobboies 3y ago

Counting the days to pass before reaching that dangling carrot is a disease. The reality is, for richer or poorer, we all retire when we die.

tills13 3y ago
Alright Debbie.
- bobboies 3y ago
  I know it’s a depressing thought—but considering that money can be thought of as a “unit of work”, and so many people are tying it up in stocks of large companies, miles away—praying they won’t get hit by a car before that special day. What about getting units of work to start working right now, instead of hoping some big company will make people’s money “grow” into the future? Invest in local economy. Invest in people. Folks thinking about retirement backwards.
  - sieabahlpark 3y ago
    I'd rather not be unable to work and be poor by "investing in people" and "local economy". They sure as hell don't come to my aid when I need it. You for shit have no idea how bad elder care is in America
    - bobboies 3y ago
      By investing locally and in people I don’t mean spend all your money. But to that end, neither are the big companies going to come to your aid. But your neighbors and local business owners will be MUCH more likely to come to your aid after supporting them and helping them succeed.
    - sieabahlpark 3y ago
      [dead]

geph2021 3y ago

wow! That's a level of personal financial analysis that I've never contemplated doing. It's fantastic that someone has built such a great tool for others, and you get so much value from it. For me personally, I fail to understand the point of doing this level of analysis, at lest for some of the things you listed that seem highly hypothetical and uncertain (e.g. raises, IPOs, even future mortgage rates). I guess that's the nature of any financial forecasting, but this just seems like it's taken to a level that I would not find helpful. Take for example the kind of mortgage to choose, a decision that all home buyers face and can be daunting (there's so much mortgage/lender lingo that is foreign to most people). The "right" answer is to go with a shorter-term, variable rate, because on average you'll pay less interest than longer-term/fixed rates. But that's also the wrong answer for some people who don't want, or can't handle variability in their biggest monthly expense. Layering those factors into an overall retirement calculator/projector just seems like overkill and over complicated for that decision. MHO...

fishtoaster 3y ago
Well, I can't speak for most people, but one thing I've been doing is using this modeling as feedback into my budget. 1. Track my current expenses (I use https://lunchmoney.app/ https://lunchmoney.app/, but a spreadsheet works fine). Looks like I'm spending $X/month 2. Build a reasonably complete model of my financial life assuming $X expenses per month (I use ProjectionLab) 3. Do I run out of money before the end of my life? If yes, look at my expense breakdown and look for areas to reduce it (fewer ubers, eat out less, cut back on diamond-encrusted tiaras, etc). My new budget is $Y/mo. Goto 2. 4. Do I have a ton of money left at the end of my life? If yes, I can increase my budget a bit for things I like (more ubers, eat out more, more diamond-encrusted tiaras, etc). I can revisit this over time as my income changes, or my retirement account value changes based on real-world market performance, or I get a windfall, or I get married, etc etc.
- scubakid 3y ago
  Cutting back on the tiaras before the mocha lattes, huh? Starbucks really has their customer retention on lock ;P