Peace, Love & Spreadsheets

 When I was having babies, I came up with what I called "the billboard theory" of pregnancy health. At the beginning of my pregnancy I was overwhelmed with information. Someone said I could only eat certain kinds of fish, someone else said I couldn't have deli meat, my aunt said she couldn't go to monster truck shows because of emissions, I was like crap there are 1,000,000 things to know! Down the street from my house there was a billboard. It had a picture of a baby, and basically said "Don't drink alcohol when you're pregnant." I was like okay. Got it.  I realized that there will always be a million controversies and ways to debate everything, but the world does settle in on agreeing to SOME things. And those things will be so big, you can't miss them. So don't worry about the weird new little closet opportunities you might be risking or missing or sweating... when in doubt, pay attention to the big thing. Which is also why I invest in FZR...

Do you get paid bi-weekly? This simple calculator will help you translate that to a monthly or yearly budget. I faced this challenge too - bills due every month, paychecks falling on totally different days. I maintained at least a paycheck's worth of padding in my checking account just to be safe, but using this method I knew about what I could put on my credit card and still be able to pay it off. The first step to using a credit card is to know, in advance, what you can put on it. Two paychecks is one way but it's nice to know what those two extra checks work out for you too. Privacy note: As with all my calculators I do not save any numbers you put in this form. It's all you, all on the browser side. Income amount?       example: 1500 How often?     Weekly (52 checks per year) Bi-weekly (every other week) Semi-monthly (24 times per year) Monthly (12 times per year) Annually (...

 One of the concepts I love about FIRE is that it admits there's no one perfect number for how much one needs to retire. The FI number depends totally on your annual expenses. History has suggested that if you invest a sum of money in a whole stock market index fund, you can withdraw 3-4% of it or so every year and it will grow to make up for it. This means you need to save up enough so that the 4% pays for your annual expenses.  The FIRE community started dividing up into camps based on how much they needed.  LeanFIRE: Households determined to live off less than $40,000 a year FatFIRE: Households saving up enough to withdraw $100,000 a year It's easy to divide these amounts by 4% (or multiply by 25, same thing) to see the total amount needed. So how can you save up this much? I am going to recommend the FV() spreadsheet function.  value = FV(rate, number of payments, payment amount, starting amount) For example... let's say I have $800 a month to invest. That's over...

 Step 1 to being an investor is to open an account with an investment firm. The big 3 are Fidelity, Vanguard and Schwab. I fell into Fidelity because it's the partner that my company works with for 401K benefits, but it's proven to be really useful and everyone says it's the most user friendly interface. For years I only used it for my 401K, something I set and forget. I didn't even exchange out of my company's matching stock for nearly a decade until the Enron scandal happened and advice spread about the need to diversify one's retirement account. I read that no one should have more than 5% of any one company in their portfolio, but my company matching had always been 50 cents to the $1 in our stock, so my 401K was 30% in one company. Oops! I found the "exchange" button and made a note to think about it once a year. As years went on I wanted to do more than just a 401K, so here's what I found: FZROX In my 20s, I opened a stock trading account with...

This calculator will tell you when you might achieve a FIRE-level of retirement savings, given your current spending vs. savings rate. It's pure math - doesn't take into account variations, inflation, changing expenses, extra social security, taxes or other factors. It's not advice and nobody can predict the future. But numbers can be very helpful. I used popular example interest rates, 4% withdrawl, 5% investment gains, but you can certainly change them. Disclaimers: I like math, but don't trust me to make major decisions. Consult your professional advisor and check all the numbers you can. I do not save any numbers you type into this form. It's all you, all browser-side. I am not a financial advisor and this is not advice. Some say you should never take financial advice from someone who's still working. I'm working. I haven't tested this out at all! I use this as pure inspiration for how much I should be savin...

 Have you asked an innocent question in a personal finance forum and gotten back that most vague response: "it depends"?   I realize it's frustrating. They act like risk is something you KNOW, like, "well I like skydiving so I'm obviously a risky person, so I guess I'll invest my retirement in meme stocks." Or if you're like me, you're worried about losing money, so does that mean you're not risky and don't DESERVE a reward? So let me put it another way. When I say "what's your risk?" what I really mean is "do you have a backup plan?"  MOST of the time, if you invest in a whole market index fund, the stock market goes up. If you can keep your money in longer, it's even more likely to go up.  So let's say you want to invest $20,000 because you want to buy a car in the next couple years.  There's a chance that your investment will grow and you can buy your car next year. If it doesn't, you just have t...