Build Your Own Financial Planning Spreadsheet

Starting with blank excel spreadsheet, together we build a financial model that include multiple savings levels, return / return expectations, time horizons, and scenarios. Almost certainly there is some for everyone interested in planning finances!

In this lecture, we add another asset class - the minimum risk asset. Allocating between that and the equities allow us to have a broad range of risk levels for this simple portfolio.

In this lecture, we add another volatility of returns, appreciating the fact that while we have an expected return, in reality the amounts we make will vary wildly from year to year. Also explain "fat tails" & why it is relevant.

In this lecture, we add multiple scenarios to the financial model to appreciate that we should expect a broad range of potential outcome for our finances, and that this should educate our thinking about the risk we are willing to take.

In this lecture, we add retirement spending to understand better what our cash needs will be in different cases. Cash needs may be a one time need, or spread out over a period, but the model can be adapted to accommodate most cases.

It is super important in finance to understand the difference between the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and the average annual growth rate. In this video we explain the difference and make sure we use the right on in our return predictions.

In this lecture, we add a range of asset allocations to your spreadsheet so you can easily compare how your choices of risk levels will impact your expected range of outcomes.

In this lecture, we estimate the fees paid for active vs. passive management of your assets, and how it depends on asset levels, risk, returns, etc.

In this lecture, we make the contributions and withdrawal amounts from our savings variable, both making them random, but also dependent on the markets. While it is neat and easy to say we contribute a fixed amount every year in reality life is rarely that predictable. We need to understand how this lack of predictability will impact our financial plans.

The model is fairly elaborate and can do a lot. We walk through the functionality and reasoning, and correct minor mistakes. Also, we discuss the path forward. We'll start building new use cases by adapting the model, and will also discuss the kind of added functionality we may add to the model going forward.