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- What Personal Finance Tools Do We Like?
I am happy Xander Schauffele won the PGA Championship this year… but Scottie Scheffler going from jail Friday morning to winning on Sunday would have been iconic. It’s hard to not root for that storyline.
What personal finance tools do we like?
Mike and I use several different financial tools (mostly free ones) to check progress, weigh different options, and make decisions. Honestly, Mike turned me on to 90% of these… which means the number one financial tool I can recommend is a friend like Mike. You can’t have Mike though so don’t ask.
This is a super fun (and useful) tool to help you figure out your Financial Independence number. You provide the length of your retirement, portfolio size, portfolio allocation (Stocks v Bonds v Cash), and how much money you expect to need (or want) each year in retirement. The tool then calculates your odds of running out of money during retirement.
If you are aiming for retirement ASAP, you can use this tool to help fine-tune your FI Number instead of just shooting for loads of money. The tool does break at $1 billion dollars… I was trying to figure out how much money Elon Musk could spend every year without running out of money. I guess he will never be able to figure it out either.
Once you’ve found your FI Number, you can use Networthify to figure out how long it’ll take to get there. This calculator also lets you play around with your savings rate to help motivate you to invest more each year.
Mortgage and Investment Calculators
These are two great calculators that highlight the power of compound interest and the cost of a mortgage. The investment calculator highlights the impact even small monthly contributions can have over a 40 year investment horizon. The mortgage calculator punches you in the face with the difference between a 6% mortgage and a 2% “COVID” mortgage. How on earth is 4% such a big difference??
This one requires me to advertise Dave Ramsey… which hurts. However, I can put aside my difference and acknowledge a good product. There is a free version which requires a lot of leg work and manual input, and a paid version which pulls data directly from your bank. Like everything in personal finance, what budgeting app you use (if any) depends on what you like the most. Jules will be the first person to tell you the branding and interface can make the difference between an app you open every day and an app you open once. Find the budgeting app you will use.
This tool, shockingly shown to me by Mike, changed my life. I am embarrassed to say before I knew about this website, I used to compile all the data on various ETFs into an excel sheet to see all the numbers side by side. Now, you can put two tickers in and see everything from expense ratios to performance. I have saved my old excels as a relic of my life before Mike.
Don’t overlook the tools your brokerage provides! Schwab, Fidelity, or any other brokerage provides analysis tools to track your portfolio’s performance and allocation balance. If you’ve got a question or want to run some scenarios, there is a tool on the internet for you. Which brings me to the last tool:
The Dollar Debrief
Yes, Mike and I love answering the random questions we want to research, but we started this newsletter to answer your questions! So send us your questions! You never know, Mike may even flex his graph drawing skills again.
Call to Action
What tools did I miss? Do you use any tools to make financial decisions? Send us an email!
What We’re Watching:
A Man in Full. This is a FANTASTIC mini series on Netflix about a hot-shot business man who is fighting with the bank trying to call in their debt. Jules and I are only on episode three so fingers crossed it doesn’t end as poorly as Seinfeld or The Office. If it does, I am sorry.
Debrief on Deck
Next week, I will be back answering the question “What is going on margin?” This a risky question for me to answer because I will have to tame the urge to talk about the movie “Margin Call” for the entire newsletter. Nothing a few Yankee Candles won’t be able to fix.
As always, please reach out to us with any questions or comments you have. You can reply directly to this email or find us on social media (X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram).
Until then, stay the course.
Wilson