Software Engineer with an offering submitted for your approval!

[Retireatee1]

Hello all, occasional forum peruser and new member here.

I'm a software engineer by trade and have been working on building my own retirement simulator. I was frustrated by the inflexibility and limitations of the available free tools I could find, so clearly it made sense to build my own totally from scratch rather than shell out for a paid one. So enter the Retireator. This started off as my personal financial planner, and evolved into a sophisticated, full-featured platform. I decided to release it as free software GPL'd under GNU Affero v3.0. Development is hosted as a public open source project on GitHub. So I've been working on it in my spare time for about two years and launched a basic website for it in September of last year complete with downloads and documentation. Version 2017.0327 was released yesterday.

I have looked at the FIRECalc site which is popular on this forum. It is quite sophisticated, but focuses in different areas from my tool. I'd say my tool does a better job at modelling a portfolio drawdown and performing incremental "what if" analyses. In addition, the tool is built entirely in Excel!

I look forward to any feedback from the community and plan to keep the tool completely free moving forward and hope there will be some interest in it.

Have a look!

Retireator.org – Retireate Away!

Larry

 

[donheff]

Looks very interesting. I'm waiting for the board quants to report back on their findings before I play with this.

Edit: And thanks for the GNU approach.

 

[rodi]

I've only played with it a very small bit. Some thoughts:

I like the open source model, but wonder why you tied it into a paid/proprietary program like Microsoft Excel. (And windows).

People might be nervous enabling macros from something downloaded from the internet. (Disclaimer I saw no bad effects do it appears to be safe)

When I entered passive income it jumped me to a different sheet - no explanations, and no jump back to the first sheet.

I am not sure, because I didn't have much time to play with it... But I think it didn't handle past dates well. Pensions that start in the past, retirement date in the past,. SS started in the past.... (But I didn't have time to verify this). Fwiw, firecalc also has issues with this.

I hope to sit down later today and continue to check it out. It seems like it had a lot of flexibility to adjust returns, inflation etc.

 

[ERD50]

I've only played with it a very small bit. Some thoughts:

I like the open source model, but wonder why you tied it into a paid/proprietary program like Microsoft Excel. (And windows).

People might be nervous enabling macros from something downloaded from the internet. (Disclaimer I saw no bad effects do it appears to be safe)
....

Sounds interesting, but I'm with rodi - I don't have (and won't get) proprietary Excel, I use LibreOffice. I doubt that the macros will work across platforms.

Could you set it up to run on the site, so users don't need to download anything?

edit - looked through the Features - now for this feature, I will buy Excel and boot into Windows :

Features

Economy

Wage inflation
Consumer price inflation
Stocks and bonds
Past and future market conditions

-ERD50

 

[zedd]

Another vote for LibreOffice compatibility. I fired Bill Gates years ago and never regretted it for a moment.

 

[Brat]

Off topic... cleaning out bookshelves.. just sent a Lotus 1-2-3 book and a couple Access programmer books to re-cycling.

 

[dixonge]

I'm betting the target audience will have Excel access.

Do the macros work in the free online version of Excel?

 

[Retireatee1]

I'm all in favor of LibreOffice compatibility if anybody want to create a fork of my GitHub project and volunteer to take a crack at it.

Thanks for the comments rodi. All income data entry is done on the "Income" tab. But the present year income values are visible on the "Main" tab as well as a link to redirect you to the relevant data entry cell. It has caused a bit of confusion with others as well, but that's all that's going on there.

Past dates for retirement and/or Social Security are no problem, in fact it uses the historical COLA tables to increment the payment for each previous year.

If you have advanced mode enabled (which I recommend), you'll see the defined benefit pension settings. You cannot have a employer defined benefit pension which started in the past. This is true. However, based on the payout option, DB pensions will either roll into your core account as a pre-tax lump sum (which you can manually add to your balance), or will roll into your annuity balance and then pay out with the annuity. So you can approximate the actuarial present value of your pension as well as the annuity parameters and it can be modeled that way.

There is a single aggregate annuity modeled for the household, which is for performance reasons. It is based on actuarial life tables, and takes 48,0000 cells to calculate believe it or not.

 

[Retireatee1]

I'm betting the target audience will have Excel access.

Do the macros work in the free online version of Excel?

No macros in Excel Online. There is a Setup process which must be completed in the Retireator which uses VBA forms. Once that is done and the worksheet is saved to a SharePoint/OneDrive location, you can then have limited functionality using Excel Online including making changes to any non-Setup simulation parameters and recalculating the simulation.

The entire simulation is written using Excel formulas only. VBA is only needed for Setup, importing, and some other higher-level functions. I save my personal Retireator plans to OneDrive each month and like to refer back to the archived documents online quickly without having to run the full version of Excel. But you really need the full version to use the tool.

 

[dixonge]

I have all that. Will kick the tires soon...

 

[wmc1000]

Excellent job Retireatee1. The only thing I would like to see would be a way to plug in the projected SS cut if there is no change in the current laws.

I do that in my personal excel spreadsheets so I can project how much of an impact it would be and that it doesn't blow any holes in our long term FI stability.

 

[Retireatee1]

Excellent job Retireatee1. The only thing I would like to see would be a way to plug in the projected SS cut if there is no change in the current laws.

Thanks, yes that idea did occur to me. I was thinking along the lines of just a simple reduction factor that you could enter, or perhaps a drop-down box of profiles.

 

[wmc1000]

When I use Firecalc I input a recurring expense that is Cola'd starting the year I think the cut would happen.

 

[ERD50]

I'm betting the target audience will have Excel access. ...

Well, we have a bunch of retirees w/o access to a work computer with Excel anymore. And a bunch of frugal LBYM-ers who find that LibreOffice fits their needs just fine, so why pay for Excel? And a few that just really don't like MicroSoft.

I'm all three

But the program sounds interesting and promising, I'll have to live vicariously through these reports for the time being.

-ERD50

 

[target2019]

I'm all in favor of LibreOffice compatibility if anybody want to create a fork of my GitHub project and volunteer to take a crack at it.

Thank you. I will take a look this weekend.

Have you been over at Bogleheads land with this? Many Excel owners there.

It's very generous of you to create something and allow others to access and modify it for their use.

 

[target2019]

I went ahead and downloaded a day early. This is something I looked for a few years ago, after seeing similar at an FA's office. I was able to pry a paper copy of the report, and then modeled something in my own workbook. I was playing the layoff game with employer, and needed to quickly see possibilities for drawing down.

From what I've seen so far, your spreadsheet work is a superior effort. It is complicated, for me. So it will take some time to find additional data to add to this.

One criticism is that the autoload macro just leaves you, without warning. It could say something to user, and maybe suggest a few things to complete next. I did read your help online. I obviously need more time with this, and hope to play around some more in the future.

 

[wmc1000]

Retireatee1 - Question on the expenses worksheet. It would appear that line items for principal payment and interest payments are possibly reversed? The Amortizer aorksheet looks to be fine however.

Additionally, it appears expenses and SS increases are in lock step with each other when, in reality, SS increases tend to be slightly less than the overall inflation rate of expenses. I model SS increases as a lesser percentage of expenses growth which gives a more conservative outlook.

 

[donheff]

Well, we have a bunch of retirees w/o access to a work computer with Excel anymore. And a bunch of frugal LBYM-ers who find that LibreOffice fits their needs just fine, so why pay for Excel? And a few that just really don't like MicroSoft.

I'm all three

But the program sounds interesting and promising, I'll have to live vicariously through these reports for the time being.

-ERD50

Same here. I had an old copy of Excel but tossed the CD when I ditched my previous PC. Figured Libre Office and Google Sheets met my needs. Maybe I will dig out my old laptop and see if it has Excel.

 

[aza455]

Would love to play with it but my 2003 Excel can't open it.

Google Sheets don't seem to handle the program, either... so no luck for me.

 

[Retireatee1]

Have you been over at Bogleheads land with this? Many Excel owners there.

I've visited over there but have only launched it here and at the MrExcel forums.

One criticism is that the autoload macro just leaves you, without warning. It could say something to user, and maybe suggest a few things to complete next. I did read your help online. I obviously need more time with this, and hope to play around some more in the future.

Yes once you leave the setup wizard you are basically dumped off in the spreadsheet. I've thought about building another setup wizard step which helps here. But I want the essence of the Retireator to be a spreadsheet, and not a huge VBA app with a spreadsheet behind it and a doubled interface. So when you are in the spreadsheet it's an Easter Egg hunt to find all the green and yellow boxes and fill them in. Thanks for the feedback.

Retireatee1 - Question on the expenses worksheet. It would appear that line items for principal payment and interest payments are possibly reversed? The Amortizer aorksheet looks to be fine however.

Additionally, it appears expenses and SS increases are in lock step with each other when, in reality, SS increases tend to be slightly less than the overall inflation rate of expenses. I model SS increases as a lesser percentage of expenses growth which gives a more conservative outlook.

Wow, I can't believe I missed the principal/interest flip. But those are just there as a convenient mortgage calculator and are not employed by the simulation. I'll fix it, thanks!

Both SS COLA and expenses and passive income inflate at the "CP Inflation" rate (refer to the "Economy" tab). Employer income and Self-Employment income and tax brackets inflate at the "Wage Inflation" rate. I could see the value in adding a modifier for expense inflation, I'll think about it.

Would love to play with it but my 2003 Excel can't open it.

No joy with 2003, but I have tested recently with Excel 2007 which is OK.

 

[omni550]

Retireatee1,

A warm welcome to you!

I have excel and will attempt a run of your kind offer of your Retireator retirement simulator.

Thanks.

omni

 

[omni550]

Well, as newbie user, I immediately hit a snag when I couldn't figure out how to get my retirement date (10 years ago) entered. I tried inputting on the dashboard and the left-hand sheet. The dashboard, when I entered my retirement date, showed 6 errors. Unclear as to whether this was due to my not having entered all the other data or what. The "Help" button on the dashboard didn't seem to work.

Also, looking at the various sheets, does this model require that we enter our annual income for all the years we worked?

omni

 

[Retireatee1]

Well, as newbie user, I immediately hit a snag when I couldn't figure out how to get my retirement date (10 years ago) entered. I tried inputting on the dashboard and the left-hand sheet. The dashboard, when I entered my retirement date, showed 6 errors. Unclear as to whether this was due to my not having entered all the other data or what. The "Help" button on the dashboard didn't seem to work.

Also, looking at the various sheets, does this model require that we enter our annual income for all the years we worked?

omni

You can enter a past date for the retirement date. The six data entry cells which have errors will be in red and should have a comment to the right of them. If you can, find them and post what the errors are.

For income, enter the amount(s) for the current year first. It will then extrapolate backwards and forwards in time from those amounts. If the past extrapolated amounts are way off, start entering amounts for past years.

 

[omni550]

I meant to say 6 warnings (not errors).

What is AIME?

On the Average Monthly Cashflow (distrib. phase)...I entered fictional numbers of $3000 passive income and $4000 expenses...and it shows a total of $7000 (whereas shouldn't it be income less expenses, 3000-4000= -1000?)

 

[Retireatee1]

I meant to say 6 warnings (not errors).

I'm guessing your mortgage details and social security filing age aren't filled in. The SS filing age is on the "Main" tab and the mortgage stuff is on the "Expenses" tab. They should be yellow.