On the real though, what I do is have an annual projection of spend by month categorized, it's broken down by necessary and discretionary.
I then have an income / inflow to determine a total net savings.
That gets rolled into a future projections tab over the next 8 years with obviously principal balance / contributions, gain amount, interest income, etc. with a conservative growth rate of 3% which is significantly lower than the S&P's historical return but its preference to use a conservative figure since an 8 year projection is a very short term realistically.
That then gets transposed into an early retirement tab with projections of spending of what we want to spend (not what we would have to spend to just get by since that's not living) until death (83 for me 84 for wife). Scenario of rent and scenario of homeownership. Some assumed tax rates, dividend rates, inflation rates, etc.
If there's a draw down in a specific year that gets rolled into the amortization chart of income / investments that is charted until death. Canadian so forced withdraw amount of RRSP's at 71 and onward, CPP bridging, etc. tax that comes with that. All the good stuff.
I then just export banking and visa monthly and have formulas to categorize to check once in a while that what we are actually spending is roughly what was projected. We don't budget I just like to keep an idea, if we spend more id adjusted the projection, not the spending habit since were living life now, not necessarily budgeting to hit early retirement.
That's how I do our finances anyway. Do a total tally of net-worth annually and compare it to the projection.
This post was edited by SBD on Aug 17 2023 08:49am