A notes tab has some annual caps like SS cap and 401(k) cap.

Also the retirement section is 2 tabs – data and line chart.

I recalculated contribution to savings while in retirement and factored mandatory IRA distributions to start diminish IRA balances, etc.

1. New tab: Paychecks – holds yours and spouses paychecks and a summary line for after tax income
2. Budget – combined yours and spouses since I felt the division of bill paying threw off the reality of budgeting hers and mine. This way it’s one budget based on combined income from paycheck tab.
3. Mock taxes – added a 1040, Sched A, Sched D, Sched E tab that can be configured to read budget/paycheck data and approximate your tax burden and plant that back into the budget sheet as a refund or payment obligation post tax.
4. Actuals tab – added one for paycheck data to come in with a new column for each paycheck if you care to enter your paystub data. This way, true state and federal tax rates (as % of salary) can be obtained for the paycheck tab and as well, true cost of pre-tax health/dental. Major benefit is a change of job – has a column for accrued if you get a final paystub from employer A and move to Employer B you can put all of A in one column and continue B in other columns. Also flows excess Social Security back to Mock taxes tab.

editing… I think your worksheet is broken? it downloaded, opened, but it seems to be only 1/2 of a page. this was from the second version link. the first one goes to page not found.

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Edit: the way it’s configured right now, one MUST right-click on “second version” link, choose “Save Target As” in (Internet Explorer, IE) or “Save Link As” (in Firefox). If you are using Firefox, you’re done. If Internet Explorer is your browser, then you MUST change the extension of the file you’re saving from “htm” to “xls” (no quotes). Lots of work and I haven’t even started budgeting!

I hope to be able to use this, it is kind of scary to see the numbers for the whole year, I start thinking I am doing pretty good, then realize I am within a couple thousand of my total yearly and might should consider some more cutbacks.

Popick, you have all my respect and admiration for this excellent tool you provided to us. You did a great service to the community, and I hope that you’ll get back all the serenity that this tool will give to all of its users!

Again, most sincerely, thanks an awful lot.

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Which is why I like the spreadsheet, teaching me new stuff.

Please add the FSA section.

If I could find a way to write monte carlo in excel, I would. I can do it with SAS, SPSS, and Stata. Good idea, and I will look at it.

If there is a category missing, like FSAs, just insert a row in the appropriate area, and copy and use the format. Confirm the subtotal that pulls from that section.

I will put an FSA/Other Pretax into the next version. That’s a good idea.

Nathan,
You’re right that there are other post-tax savings…Id add them to the savings section by inserting rows and then making sure the subtotals are pulling in the new rows. I would like to note that any leftover funding goes into the same 5% high yield account, similiar to the yearly savings, car savings, and other short-term (less than 5 years) savings…5% high yield interest bearing accounts that are very liquid.

Mama’s Money
My suggestion would be to circumvent the paycheck stub calculator and enter your weekly net pay where it would normally be calculated…should work from there

You have provided a great tool for people to get started budgeting. There will always be people who are negative but you have done a great service to all the readers here so don’t be discouraged by some of the comments as most of us will appreciate your efforts!

All in all, I think the worksheet is great and very thorough.

I know I should be saving more than I spend but I am working on that. It’s always something… dog gets attacked by nettles ($112) or horse rips the lining out of his nose ($180) or it’s someone’s birthday or Christmas or whatever.

I think the major point here is that everyone needs to use SOMETHING–whatever works for them–to keep track of what you are spending and saving/investing.

My husband always wonders where his money goes. I know where mine goes. I write it down.

Popick – thanks for your initial work on this, and for listening to input and making changes.

Here are a couple of links describing monte carlo simulations, the first lets you fill in some details and it rolls the dice for you.

The second is more of a description of what monte carlo simulations are all about.

http://www.pivotpointadvisors.com/retirementcalculator.asp
http://www.moneychimp.com/articles/volatility/montecarlo.htm

I agree excel can be amazing for these things, and I already made a few changes to it myself (I am not married, so taxes needed altering for example). I didn’t mention a thanks in the previous post, I’ve made spreadsheets like this before, so I can appreciate the time put into it.

I was just mentioning, because I divert funds to a high interest savings (emergency/backup fund), roth, normal checking/savings, and individual investments. I realize this is not the case for most, I was simply mentioning an extra row wouldn’t be a bad idea…after all, people might see it and feel a need to fill it, which would be a good thing in this case.

There was lots of information, but I couldn’t get my actual paystub information to align with the categories or math at all. (Granted, I have a few quirky elements, like imputed income for the value of my domestic partner’s health insurance coverage. But I also couldn’t figure out where more commonly used things like pre-tax Flexible Savings Accounts would go.)

My mother always taught me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say I should keep it to myself.

To Mr. Popick, who I assume must be the above DC Economist, Thank you.