Searching for an online spending spreadsheet

[roadtripper]

I hope someone else has seen this and can help me find it!

It was an online spreadsheet where you input your salary and expenses. It showed you how many more years you would have to work in order to pay for each expense (ie cable, massages, etc.) as a way to motivate people to cut spending so that they could retire earlier.

Does that sound familiar to anyone? If so, please link it here. I need to motivate my daughter to save more lol. Thank you!

[Miarocks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtripper I hope someone else has seen this and can help me find it! It was an online spreadsheet where you input your salary and expenses. It showed you how many more years you would have to work in order to pay for each expense (ie cable, massages, etc.) as a way to motivate people to cut spending so that they could retire earlier. Does that sound familiar to anyone? If so, please link it here. I need to motivate my daughter to save more lol. Thank you!

Not sure of the exact one you’re referring to, but I often use the calculators found on the bankrate website.

www.bankrate.com/calculators

[roadtripper]

Thank you.

It was a calculator where you could input something like cable, and it would tell you how many months or years you would have to work before you could retire if you kept paying for that item.

[pjm-7]

The book "Your Money or Your Life" by Vicki Robin has a calculator on their website that might be what you are looking for. If you have never read the book I would recommend it.

https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/life-energy-calculator/

[Sunset]

Isn't this simply a backhanded way of saying a person needs to save $x per month in order to retire, and base the retirement money off some percentage of their current income

Then just tell the person to save that much per month first, and they are free to blow the rest on anything wasteful.

[roadtripper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset Isn't this simply a backhanded way of saying a person needs to save $x per month in order to retire, and base the retirement money off some percentage of their current income Then just tell the person to save that much per month first, and they are free to blow the rest on anything wasteful.

I get what you're saying; it's an opportunity cost type calculator. I don't think I am describing it properly, but it put into stark terms exactly how much longer you had to work to pay for items like cable, etc. Would you still want cable if meant you had to work 18 months longer?

[deserat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pjm-7 The book "Your Money or Your Life" by Vicki Robin has a calculator on their website that might be what you are looking for. If you have never read the book I would recommend it. https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/life-energy-calculator/

Thank you for that link - in the book they talk about how to build a spreadsheet, however, that link does the work :-) It is interesting to see what your true hourly rate is (Tightwad Gazette Amy Dacscysn (sp?) used to calculate that in her books especially in the situation of having a stay at home parent versus both working) and then how long it would take to work to buy certain items of a certain cost. It truly demonstrates the idea of 'life energy' being expended for goods.

[pb4uski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtripper I hope someone else has seen this and can help me find it! It was an online spreadsheet where you input your salary and expenses. It showed you how many more years you would have to work in order to pay for each expense (ie cable, massages, etc.) as a way to motivate people to cut spending so that they could retire earlier. Does that sound familiar to anyone? If so, please link it here. I need to motivate my daughter to save more lol. Thank you!

Wouldn't it be (annual expense/4%)/annual savings?

For example let's say your property taxes are $5,000 a year. Using the 4% rule, you would need to have $125,000 in savings at retirement to produce $5,000 a year adjusted for inflation. So if you save $35,000 a year then it would take 3.57 years.

That said, I think looking at what is required for any single expense is a silly way to look at it... but it might be relevant to certain discretionary expenses... like a boat or an additional car.

[roadtripper]

Here's the one I was looking for, in case anyone else is interested.
https://www.madfientist.com/financia...e-spreadsheet/

[Yoheadden]

I’m glad you found what you needed. I couldn’t help you there, but I do remember reading somewhere of a similar way of thinking when figuring out to buy something or not.
For example: if I get paid $10 per hour and I want a pair of sneakers that cost $200. Is that pair of sneakers worth the 20 hours you will have to work, to get it.
A teenager will probably still say yes. Lol
Please don’t get caught up on who makes $10 an hr anymore. I just used easy figures for simplicity sake, but you get he point.