I almost always end up making a spreadsheet. If I try out an online tool, I typically get frustrated over a couple of things:

• Usually they're not sophisticated enough. The most common example that comes to mind is inflation & time/value of money. For example - the salary I need to live on today in 2025 is not the same salary I need to live on in 2045. So when a retirement calculator asks something like "What is your target retirement income?", it's often not a complete enough question for that tool to help me find my investing target.
• If they are sophisticated, it can be hard to understand what is "really" going on under the hood and I end wanting to really understand the problem

And the added bonus for me has always been the ability to add a "What if"? scenario and see the results I really care about.

ChatGTP has been an interesting evolution in this area. You can really work through a question and ask it consider a lot of variables for you. You can upload a spreadsheet and ask for additional scenarios or "What am I missing?", etc.

I'll add the example that got me started on this kick later...

Annual budgeting, consolidated balance sheet, and expense tracking: Monarch (online tool).
Scenario analysis and multi-year forecasting: Excel.

Don't overengineer the problem, a compounding wealth model with modest assumptions for growth and distributions is going to be directionally good enough.

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Annual budgeting, consolidated balance sheet, and expense tracking: Monarch (online tool).
Scenario analysis and multi-year forecasting: Excel.

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I do all of this in Tiller which is a spreadsheet-based tool. Highly recommend it if you prefer spreadsheets over online tools. It won't look as slick as Monarch, but it's one stop shopping for this stuff. And you can customize it however you want since it's spreadsheet based.

Having said that, with AI you can now build your own tool in a spreadsheet even if you don't have the skill set if you know the right prompts to ask and have the patience to build out what you get back from AI.

Both. I like firecalc for long range stochastic projections but spreadsheets for getting the inputs for the stochastic model like spending forecasts and for doing more detailed deterministic projections .

Long time Mint user, which I really enjoyed. I've used Empower since mint shut down, but it seems to always have issues syncing. And they have been such a pita to deal with regarding my wife's 401k that I'm about to give them up entirely. I have a tab open to sign up for Monarch.

But through all of that, my weekly updated excel file is still going strong with almost 10 years of data.

I'm surprised SpreadsheetAg hasn't weighed in on this topic.

Probably goes without saying...

I was given access to professional tools in one of my previous roles and its kind of incredible how advanced they are. I would say Boldin is the closest non-professional tool but it still lacks some of the features eMoney, Holistiplan and Income Lab have.

I still have access to Income Lab and I use that as my primary tool. I wish I still had access to Holistiplan but Income Lab is starting add some of features I miss from that tool.

I spend a lot of time on planes and created a spreadsheet in 2002 that I still use today. It's solid.

Like you, I've tried a few tools like Boldin only to give up after a few days because just not sophisticated enough.

Projection Lab is really, really good. I've been using it for about 6 months and am impressed. Whenever I get 'stuck' with something I try to do, I'll just get into ChatGPT and there's usually a good set of instructions as to how to do what I'm trying to model.

YMMV, but I think projectionlab is easily worth $120/yr.

Yes. I have been using spreadsheets since around 2007.

I started using Microsoft Money in the year 2000. That was nice, fascinating how I just connected accounts and it pulled transactions in from various accounts. Then around 2007 I began to track investments more closely so used Excel. It was a pain to update prices every day.

Until I discovered Google Sheets where the GOOGLEFINANCE function did all the magic. Now I have an elaborate spreadsheet in Sheets with all the indexes that I want to track any metric I want. Has a lot of complex formulas. I have 1 sheet for each year right from 2007 and it has evolved every year. I just was putting together my 2026 sheet and my gains start from zero. I prefer this as every year you can reset and start with a clear mind.

I used to use mint from 2010. When I pull all my accounts in, I was shocked to see what I was worth. Just a measly few hundred thousands. Scared the hell out of me and from then I started focusing more on investing than on my corporate job. Best decision ever. Now I am quite comfortable as retirement looms. Mint has gone away and replaced by empower.com for tracking net worth.

Malibu said:

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Annual budgeting, consolidated balance sheet, and expense tracking: Monarch (online tool).
Scenario analysis and multi-year forecasting: Excel.

Don't overengineer the problem, a compounding wealth model with modest assumptions for growth and distributions is going to be directionally good enough.

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This.
A lot of my friends create very very complex future looking spreadsheets using net present value and all that, I never do it. Waste of time and no one knows how accurate they are though they seem like what the pros would do.

My calculations are simple. At max, I think I will live another 40 years. I need an average of 100k each year. That makes it $4M. Risks are increased medical costs at an older age, and inflation but I use 100k as an average number. You can also use $125k if you like. I do not count any SS or inheritance. My current investments will also grow. My friends try to make it too accurate and agonize a lot over it.

AgCPA95 said:

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YouBet said:

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TTUArmy said:

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I'm surprised SpreadsheetAg hasn't weighed in on this topic.

Probably goes without saying...

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He's still stuck in Lotus 123 and has no idea what's happening here.

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Quattro Pro has entered the chat....

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Symphony would like a word with you.

Looking to track day to day spending (would really help the severe ADHD wife if it showed graphics of spending like graphs or charts). Old way was a spreadsheet and just not a fan of it.

PDEMDHC said:

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Looking to track day to day spending (would really help the severe ADHD wife if it showed graphics of spending like graphs or charts). Old way was a spreadsheet and just not a fan of it.

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If you are willing to pay, then Monarch seems to be the gold standard these days.

If you are an Apple ecosystems guy, I would also look at Copilot.

MyMamaSaid said:

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Like you, I've tried a few tools like Boldin only to give up after a few days because just not sophisticated enough.

Projection Lab is really, really good. I've been using it for about 6 months and am impressed. Whenever I get 'stuck' with something I try to do, I'll just get into ChatGPT and there's usually a good set of instructions as to how to do what I'm trying to model.

YMMV, but I think projectionlab is easily worth $120/yr.

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Concur with this. I'm on my second year and have several friends using ProjectionLab now. It's got a few quirks much better than Boldin.

I'm going to sign up for Monarch, if anybody wants to send me a referral code I'll sign up through that. Unless it doesn't stack with their current 50% off

JobSecurity said:

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I'm going to sign up for Monarch, if anybody wants to send me a referral code I'll sign up through that. Unless it doesn't stack with their current 50% off

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Here ya go! Monarch is awesome

https://monarch.com/referral/g7inaw9ryt?r_source=share

I've tried many of them over the years. Monarch is the only one I've stuck with. There are still some dumb limitations but it's pretty damn good

You know, spreadsheets can easily go graphs and charts

TrustTheAwesomeness said:

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MyMamaSaid said:

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Like you, I've tried a few tools like Boldin only to give up after a few days because just not sophisticated enough.

Projection Lab is really, really good. I've been using it for about 6 months and am impressed. Whenever I get 'stuck' with something I try to do, I'll just get into ChatGPT and there's usually a good set of instructions as to how to do what I'm trying to model.

YMMV, but I think projectionlab is easily worth $120/yr.

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Concur with this. I'm on my second year and have several friends using ProjectionLab now. It's got a few quirks much better than Boldin.

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Really cool. Boldin and ProjectionLab are new to me. Can y'all give some examples of how PL is better than Boldin?

One of the things I want to model is if we decide to move out of state and live in a different state? Can either of these model out tax implications and any other inputs/outputs for this?

Also, since PL is not connected to your accounts what is the hassle factor like to get your data into the tool and updated regularly?

infinity ag said:

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I used to use mint from 2010. When I pull all my accounts in, I was shocked to see what I was worth. Just a measly few hundred thousands. Scared the hell out of me and from then I started focusing more on investing than on my corporate job. Best decision ever. Now I am quite comfortable as retirement looms. Mint has gone away and replaced by empower.com for tracking net worth.

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This was my exact same experience. After graduating a&m with $55k in student loans I loaded everything into mint and saw the big red negative $53,000 net worth. I still have that screenshot somewhere for motivation.

Huge kick in the butt that lead to reading 4-5 personal finance books that year. And really changed how I think.

Thanks to lots of hard work, dedication, and a bit of good luck hit 7 figure net worth a little over 10 years after that.

Nowadays I use Monarch heavily for similar features. It's been great so far.