Have a look at my Excel project...the "Retireator"

[Celly]

Greetings!


So I'm a software engineer by trade and have been working on building my own retirement simulator. I was frustrated by the inflexibility and limitations of the available free tools I could find, so clearly it made sense to build my own totally from scratch rather than shell out for a paid one. So enter the Retireator. This started off as my personal financial planner, and evolved into a fairly sophisticated platform. I decided to release it as free software GPL'd under GNU Affero v3.0. It is hosted as a public open source project on GitHub just for fun. So I've been working on it in my spare time for about two years and launched a basic website for it in September of this year. Downloads are hosted there now. The first "annuitized" version was released today (v2016.1127). There are numerous links from the Retireator to online documentation on my website.


Architecturally, the Retireator is two simulations: an "outer" simulation from 1954 to 80 years from now, and an "inner" simulation from any start date to the configured life expectancy. The outer simulation mostly calculates Social Security earnings, while the inner simulation calculates everything else. Both simulations are written entirely using Excel formulas, without any dependency on VBA. I feel this design gives the best stability, portability, and performance.


VBA is required, however, to complete the Setup process and bring the simulation online. VBA is also required for the Dashboard to operate. However, once the Setup process has been completed, the xlsx file can be used in Excel Online with quite a bit of functionality intact if desired. So the full version of Excel with macros enabled must be used the first time it is opened (and does continue to provide the best overall experience).


The Retireator does not take a desired income as a parameter as it is based entirely off of expenses. It makes heavy use of iterative calculations to run Federal income tax bracket calculations in reverse and solve for the required income each year. It can also solve for the target retirement date through the "Retireate" feature (accessible through the Dashboard). The simulation works on an annualized basis, but with extensive prorating where appropriate.


The tool is intended for American retirees. The Mr. Excel forum has been a great resource for getting past roadblocks on this project, and I look forward to any feedback from the community. I plan to keep the tool completely free moving forward and hope there will be some interest in it.

Retireator.org – Retireate Away!

 

[Celly]

No interest? Bueller?

So I've posted the last release of 2016, v2016.1231. I've done some optimizations for Excel 2016 as well as some minor fixes.

 

[Sektor]

Well, good for you! I hope someone used your program)

 

[Sektor]

I visited your project on GitHub. Your Excel file is just a folder - not Excel file, i.e. it's unpacked.

 

[Sektor]

Also, your Win32 API calls are only for 32-bit Excel.

 

[Sektor]

Also, several sheets (Portfolio, Annuitizer, SSRIB, Amortizer, Taxes, Annualizer) had errors (Formulas -> Error Checking).

 

[Celly]

I visited your project on GitHub. Your Excel file is just a folder - not Excel file, i.e. it's unpacked.

Correct, the packed xlsm is only available as a download on retireator.org.

Also, your Win32 API calls are only for 32-bit Excel.

It employs the following Win32 calls:

GetTempPathA/GetTempFileNameA : used for chart exporting and loading

GetKeyState: used for detecting ctrl key state for debug mode

I honestly haven't accounted for 64-bit API compatibility. The version of Excel 2016 I tested on was installed as 32 bits. Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into this. My Win32 API usage is quite limited so hopefully this is doable.

 

[Celly]

Also, several sheets (Portfolio, Annuitizer, SSRIB, Amortizer, Taxes, Annualizer) had errors (Formulas -> Error Checking).

Thanks, these are by design. The inner simulation is a maximum 80 years, but typically less depending on the setup parameters. So after the end of the inner simulation, these rows are invalid. Instead of adding IF conditions to check for this in hundreds of formulas, I let those rows error out and they are hidden by filters on every tab. The simulation makes extensive use of dynamic named ranges which also exclude these cells. So I would never expect a cell in an error state to be visible or even referenced by a visible cell.

The downside to this strategy is the loss of meaningful results from the Error Checking function.

 

[Sektor]

It employs the following Win32 calls:
GetTempPathA/GetTempFileNameA : used for chart exporting and loading

You could instead use Environ$("Temp") to get Temp folder path and append some distinct name for temp file like "___Retireeeee___file1".

 

[Celly]

You could instead use Environ$("Temp") to get Temp folder path and append some distinct name for temp file like "___Retireeeee___file1".

Thanks, I've got that checked in for the January release in a week or two. I think it should run in 64-bit Excel but I can't test it.