Does retiring early spark your interest? If so, this free FIRE estimator is for you!
What is FIRE?
FIRE, or “Financial Independence, Retire Early” is a money management philosophy that’s taken off with its unique approach to personal finance and retirement planning. The FIRE movement is built on the foundation of frugality, aggressive saving, and wise investing, with the goal of achieving financial independence so you can focus on personal passions instead of traditional employment.
Use a calculator to track your goals
As a small business owner, I’m always searching for different tools to help me track against my financial goals, and with this pre-retirement calculator from Microsoft Excel, you can do just that. Simply input your financial information, (like your current age, your savings, annual income & more), your monthly expenses and your portfolio asset mix, and watch as the calculator estimates when you'll be able to retire, based on the inputs that you entered.
Customize your FIRE calculator
One way I would customize this template is by adding conditional formatting to easily see if I've exceeded my budget. For example, let's say I wanted to check if I exceeded my $1,500 monthly food budget. To do this, I would select "Food Subtotal" in my tracker and add two conditional formatting rules. Navigate to Conditional Formatting on the ribbon, choose Highlight Cell Rules and select Greater Than. My greater than value would be $1,500 and I would format it with the Light red fill option.
For my next rule, I'll navigate back to Conditional Formatting on the ribbon and select Less Than. My less than value would still be $1,500 and I would format that with the Green fill option. If my total amount is red, I'll know I exceeded my $1,500 budget. If it's green, I know I've stayed within my threshold.
FIRE estimator templates save you time and stress
You can check out more free, easily customizable financial management and budgeting templates at Microsoft Create.
