Creator's FI Calculator


  Current Annual Living Expenses ($)  
  Current Savings Balance ($)  
  Current Take-Home Income ($)  
  Expected Annual Raise (%)  
  Expected Investment Growth Rate (%)    
  Financial Independence Factor
 
  Expected Inflation (%)  

Place your income above and calculate the time it will take to reach financial independence. You can also see how your savings compare to the average American "consumer" savings in the plot below.


How to Use

This calculator lays out a model that I introduced in The Creator's Path To Financial Independence : Part 1.  It shows the power of saving your surplus income as opposed to consuming it.  The purple line shows the amount of money you need to reach Financial Independence.  It slowly goes up as your cost of living goes up with inflation.  The blue line shows your savings account balance over time.  It assumes that you save all income above your living expenses instead of spending it.  Where the purple and blue lines intersect, you reach Financial Independence!  The green line shows the typical American that currently has an average savings of $5,000 and only saves 5% of their income (assumed to have the same income as you).  You can see that, unlike you, the average consumer generally has no chance of reaching Financial Independence or retirement using traditional consumer savings habits.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creator's Path to Financial Independence Calculator

Image
Welcome back to Consumers and Creators! As you likely know we have been going through the Creator's Path to Financial Independence series.  My first article in this series is by far my most viewed article on the blog.  It gives an example of how you can grow great wealth by simply avoiding lifestyle inflation.  I included some nifty Excel plots, but I was getting feedback that the scenarios I used were very specific and not relevant to all readers.   So, in response, it's time for me to put my money where my mouth is and create something useful. Introducing, the Creators's Path to Financial Independence Calculator (beta)!  This calculator allows you to run a simplified version of my calculations from Part I. You can get to the calculator from the "pages" heading on the left-hand side of the site.  I call it "beta" because I still need to add some text on how to operate it and I'm still considering adding some features, but I figure
Read more

Building a Twenty-Four Seat Movie Theater in My Basement

Image
When we moved into our house several years ago, it came with a large (21' x 21') unfinished room in the basement.  The floors and walls were cold concrete and block.  We decided to put a ping pong table in it which gave it some limited functionality when we had friends over, but otherwise it was generally wasted space.  My wife and I called a local contractor and asked for an estimate to frame the room, hang drywall, run electrical outlets, and prime it.  To save some money, I was willing to paint it and we were confident we could get a good deal on carpet. $10,265. That was the estimate received in December of 2016.  My wife and I couldn't believe the price, so we spoke to another local contractor who confirmed that this was about right for this kind of work.  I looked at my wife and said "Hey, I bet I could do a really cool theater room for a fraction of the price."  She agreed to turn me loose as long as I was less than the contractor's estimat
Read more

The Creator’s Path to Financial Independence: Part 1

Image
Welcome to the first financial post of the C&C blog.   If you remember back in the ‘What is a creator?’ post I left a teaser about the incredible financial benefits of adopting the creator’s approach to life.   Now that I’ve finally had time to get around to our first post in this area, the best way to start is with an example. Two people graduate from college at the age of 22.   Let’s call them “Creator” and “Consumer”.   Both have the exact same degrees and live in areas with similar costs of living.   Both get jobs and have a household starting income at $51,000 dollars a year ( Just below the nation’s average household income ).   Both work at companies with 401k plans that will match contributions up to 3% of their monthly wages.   In fact, there are only two differences between Creator and Consumer.   1) Creator’s creative, proactive, passionate, and grateful approach to life makes him a more valuable employee and he is rewarded with an average of 2% better raises
Read more