Archives for November 2018

Do Hard Things

November 29, 2018 By Deanna 7 Comments

I participated in a #thankfulnesschallenge this month and wrote a post about gratitude being a state of mind. Furthermore, I challenged you to track the following in regards to doing hard things:

How many times you wanted to give up
The number of times you actually gave up
The total number of difficult things you did

I participated too and will share what I learned about myself in this challenge. Moreover, I will share some changes I’m making in my processes at work as a result of my reflection on this challenge.

Do Hard Things

Firstly, I am certain I missed tracking results several days but I did track. I mostly did this in my place of work but the results did include a few personal moments, like working out when I didn’t feel like it. Anyway, here are my numbers for a 3-week challenge:

Total number of difficult things I did – 18
How many times I wanted to give up – 6
Number of times I gave up – 0

The important thing was to not actually give up. It’s okay to want to give up. Heck, it’s quite normal. However, it’s what we do with that desire to want to give up that creates character. I’ve discovered that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

I’ve also learned that it’s in the overcoming where I become the woman God wants me to be. Although, it often does suck in the process and for that, I cannot go it alone. My first line of defense is prayer. My second line of defense is my team and by team, I mean the people who have been strategically placed in my life.

The importance of having a team

Team is defined as:

noun

A group of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport.

verb

Come together as a team to achieve a common goal.

I have a team in the office. Additionally, I have a team of warriors in my recovery. Furthermore, I have a financial team. We all have teams and choose the players in our lives. Sometimes it’s done unconsiciously but I prefer to consciously pick my teammates.

My mind can be a battlefield and when I’m left to my own defenses, it’s not always pretty. If I find myself squireling down a hole of unproductive thoughts, I call in my team for reinforcement. They challenge me, they hear me out, and most importantly they talk to me about solutions.

Doing hard things at work

I discovered that the bulk of my challenges these days come at work. Perhaps that is because I spend a good chunk of my time every week at work. Also, it’s called work which implies that it can be hard. Since I’m a fan of doing hard things, I want to embrace this and get better.

Upon reflection over this past month, I’ve conferred with some of my work teammates on how to get better. As a result, I have five strategies I’m employing in my career to create efficiencies and protections.

1. Ask for help

I noticed that when I was faced with incredibly hard tasks at the office, I often talked to my colleagues on how to do it. I believe I’ve developed the ability to ask for help from years of being in recovery.

It’s a great habit to build as other people can often see the problem objectively and hence suggest a solution we might not see while in the midst of it.

Furthermore, if it’s a problem at the office it could affect the entire team, so they have some interest in helping me solve it. Typically, I just need to talk it out, hear others input, formulate a strategy, and then execute. Simple.

From my experience, it’s easy to get stuck in the problem. Asking for help from others is often the lubricant needed to keep things moving.

While I didn’t mention tracking this in the challenge, I noticed that almost every time I had to do hard things I asked for help.

I believe, although I don’t have statistics to support this, that others don’t always ask for help because they see it as a weakness. Sometimes I’m guilty of this and want to prove I can do things alone in my career.

However, almost every time I call on reinforcements for help, the problem is solved more efficiently. And let me clarify, I am not asking for others to do the work for me. Typically, I’m just looking for another set of eyes on it. Although, there certainly are times when another colleague may be better suited to help with the execution.

Bottom line, when things get overwhelming, ask for help.

2. Batch processing

Okay, email is a big problem. I mean BIG and I’m certain I’m not alone in this as we all get bombarded in our inboxes daily. A growing inbox can be quite derailing from the projects I need to complete.

One of my colleagues recently employed batch processing his emails. This is not a new concept. It basically means setting aside specific times each day to process a certain thing in a batch-like manner.

I asked him how it was going for him and he expressed that it improved his workflow. I have no shame so I decided to copy him. He already worked out the kinks and discovered three times a day to be the magic number.

I now have three chunks of time blocked off on my calendar each day for processing my emails. I’ve found it reduces a lot of frustrations and also allows me uninterrupted times of focus on my work.

The key to batch processing emails is to not look at them in between these times. We use Gmail at the office and there is a great extension called boomerang. Here are some of the features that I utilize with Boomerang:

Schedule emails to be sent later
Boomerang an email to return to my inbox at a later date
Send emails and boomerang them back if no one responds
Pause my emails

Overall this little extension helps me reduce my inbox clutter.

When I’m in between email batch processing times, I utilize the pause feature. If I’m expecting an urgent email, I can use delivery exceptions to allow for emails from specific senders.

Overall, I’m 100% in and will continue to embrace batch processing.

3. Task Management

We utilize a great collaborative work management tool in the office called, smartsheet. This also helps reduce inner office inbox clutter as we can communicate within certain projects on smartsheets.

However, I’ve found it to be too robust for my daily task list. I had reverted to using pen & paper to write my daily to-dos. It seemed silly and so I talked to a colleague about it. I use todoist for my personal tasks and he suggested I additionally start using it for my work tasks.

I love it! The different main project headings in my todoist app are:

Work
Blog
Investments
Personal

Under the work project, I’ve created a project called Quick Work Tasks. This is for the little one-off things that need to get done but are not necessarily a full project. My colleague suggested this and it’s genius! As I am batch processing emails or receiving calls, I can put little one-off into this list with a scheduled date and then move on.

If something hits my radar that is going to involve multiple steps, I create a sub-project under “work” in my todoist app and list the potential steps needed to complete this project.

Because the app allows me to create different color-coded projects, I find I can use it for work and personal without interference.

Furthermore, todoist allows you to schedule reoccuring tasks.

Now the first thing I do every day at the office is to review my todoist list.

4. The power of two

Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

My boss has reminded me that we don’t need to go it alone. When there is a potentially hard meeting scheduled, we should go in twos. After all, Jesus sent out his apostles two by two. It creates a stronger front.

I manage client accounts and feel a strong sense of responsibility to do it well. I take complete ownership. Sometimes this means that I go it alone; however, my boss has encouraged me to call on reinforcements.

We’ve built a strong team and for the most part, we have the capability of doing meetings in twos. I needed to be reminded of this possibility which leads me back to point #1 – remember to ask for help.

5. Eat the Frog

Mark Twain said, “eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

A former colleague used to come into the office and say, “let’s eat the frog!”

It basically means doing the thing you don’t want to do first. It helps you take charge of your day and is a hedge against procrastination. Here is a great little article on identifying the frogs of your day as well as tips for actually doing it.

I had to wake up extra early one day this month for client open enrollment meetings. I discovered my day was extra efficient and as a result have started waking up earlier every day. This allows me more quiet time. Furthermore, I am identifying the frogs of my day and then eating them!

Closing Thoughts

No one likes to do hard things but it’s in the hard stuff where we develop grit.

For me, the key is having systems in place to fall back on when I’m feeling overwhelmed and want to give up. Additionally, it is a hedge against me reverting to old behavior like hiding.

Moreover, the systems allow me to get better in life and who doesn’t want to get better?

Alright, I’d love to now hear from you. If you participated in this challenge, how did it affect you? If not and want to, I recommend you do it for the next couple of weeks and come back and share your results. We are a team and together we can get better…

You Have an Audience

November 26, 2018 By Deanna 7 Comments

Today you get to read a truly awesome post from my friend, David. I’ve had the great pleasure of getting to know David over the last year. We first met at CampFI Mid-Atlantic in April and have stayed in touch via the internet in support of each other’s work.

We both launched our sites around the same time with interestingly similar names. 🙂

However, we have different missions but our common ground is financial independence.

David runs the stellar site, Fiology, which is designed to bring you a quality weekly lesson on financial independence. The lessons go for one year. I highly recommend enrolling!

Alright, enjoy this piece from David…

You Have an Audience

J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly wrote a post promoting the value of Fiology. His post led to a drastic increase of people enrolled to receive Fiology’s free weekly lessons. Reflecting on the numbers bump on my way to work, I had an epiphany. “I now have an audience!” All of a sudden I was thinking about the responsibility that came along with having an audience. As the audience grows, I need to be aware of my messaging and ensure I use tact in my dealings with others contributing in the financial independence space. Or if I write a blog post for someone else’s site, I need to make sure it is aligned with the values of Fiology, and so on.

Then almost immediately, I had an epiphany to the epiphany – “I’ve always had an audience. Hell, every person always has an audience.”

In every context of our lives, we have an audience.

Our Workplace

The people in our office, in our departments, in our building, and in higher corporate echelons makeup our audience. We insert ourselves into this environment and convey messages with every action and interaction. These messages affect how we are perceived and directly shape culture, morale, and productivity.

We are messaging in everything we do from crafting and sending emails and having discussions with our coworkers and bosses to contributing in meetings and helping (or not helping) others with their challenges. Is your messaging adding positive or negative value in the place you spend so much time and energy?

And believe that whatever message you are sending is shaping the message your coworkers are sending about you when you aren’t hanging with them in the breakroom.

It just so happened on this day, I performed the duties of master of ceremonies of a graduation. I did all of the obvious things like making eye contact with the audience members, attempt to speak clearly, and smile and have good posture as I would later be found in the background of photos and videos. At one point, while students were crossing the stage, exchanging graduation certificates for handshakes, I felt the urge to yawn. Luckily I didn’t have a speaking part at that moment and was able to step out of view for a few seconds.

What message would I have sent if I yawned at the podium in plain sight of faculty and students? This was a proud moment to be celebrated, my messaging of boredom would have added negative value.

Unless you’re playing the role of Sleepy the Dwarf in a production of Snow White, yawning in front of an audience is a bad idea.

Our Families

Arriving home from work, I usually walk in the front door and say “Hello Family!” as our dog Pepper scurries excitedly at my feet, and then depending on who I reach first, kiss my wife and son and ask about their day. My fifteen-year-old daughter is usually somewhere else in the house. Most days I am able to hunt her down and inquire about the details of her day.

The message I want to send my family is that I am glad to be home with them, I love them, and I care about what they experienced that day. I don’t always get it right, but when I do, it adds positive value and sets us up for a more positive evening.

The Power of Our Influence

When I screw things up, my wife will let me know, usually in a loving but direct manner. However, my kids look up to me by default, because I am their dad. I understand the influence, both positive and negative, that my messaging has on their growth. My expectation is that they become well-rounded children and young adults with a healthy view of the world around them. And even though I understand the significance of my role in their development, I often react to things hastily when I should take time to craft a more appropriate response.

In the big scheme of life, they are with us for a short amount of time before venturing out in the world. I should strive to earn and maintain the respect of my children by continuing to focus on the value of my messages. When I act without much thought, it usually adds negative value to their lives.

Anyone with kids will agree that it is amazing what they pay attention to and remember. It seems my almost five-year-old son pays attention to everything and remembers everything. This past Sunday I woke up before the family and made my way to the gym. I sent my wife this message:

And it led to this exchange:

This goes to show that our kids (and young relatives for those who don’t have kids) pay attention to more than we know. And if they pay attention to and remember the color of a drawstring for no particular reason, imagine the power our physical and verbal interactions have in their lives. What positive value does your family receive from your messaging?

[Deanna note: firstly, how awesome is it that David has his wife programmed into his phone as, “My Queen”?! Ladies, accept nothing less!! Secondly, I can attest to little ones paying attention to the details. I’ve heard my niece & nephew repeat things I’ve told them…many times.]

Ourselves

I think it’s safe to say that there is no one we spend more time with than ourselves. We are our most consistent audience. Just as we should focus on intentional messaging to others in our world, it is important that we are aware of our messaging to ourselves.

Does it make sense for us to allow social media comments or opinions of others to impact how we think about ourselves? Even if there is some truth in the external comments or opinions, It is much healthier for us to understand the link between how we think and how we feel and using that to help us build a healthy relationship with ourselves? Looking elsewhere to place blame and even give credit for our happiness level is practically useless.

Lisa M. Hayes’ quote, “Be careful how you are talking to yourself because you are always listening.” sums this up nicely.

What does this have to do with financial independence?

By now you’ve read about a thousand words and nowhere have I recommended what index fund to invest in or where you should purchase your next rental property. The money stuff is the easy part. Remember, in this financial independence journey, money is only a tool and once you have enough money, it’s not about the money.

Happiness is what we’re after and I believe we each have the power to learn what brings us happiness and shape a life that maximizes happiness. And I believe that we are more likely to be happy if we identify our audience(s) and focus on providing positive value.

Bloggers and online personas do have an audience and they should be mindful of messaging. However, the majority of people on my mailing list will never meet me personally. My intention is to put positive value out into the world with Fiology and in my daily interactions.

Anyone exploring Fiology or other sites should not give the content more credit than warranted, it is simply displayed information. If that information inspires action that results in a benefit, great. Let’s be clear, however, that credit for progress and achievement belongs to the individual who is taking action in their lives.

In the financial independence community, we constantly focus on intentional spending, let’s also focus on intentional messaging and see how that allows us to experience more happiness.

Closing Thoughts

Wow, David, this is such a thought-provoking post for not only bloggers but people in general!! My big takeaway is that all of us have an audience no matter what we are doing in life.

What do we want to tell that audience?

Moreover, what are we telling ourselves? I have a fitness instructor who pushes me hard and often times in class she’ll ask us, “what are you telling yourselves right now? It better be something positive!”

Thank you, David, for bringing it big time to me and my readers!!

P.S. Do I get to meet inspiring people through blogging or what??

We’d love to hear from and be inspired by you! How has this post stimulated thoughts on your messaging to yourself and others?

Gratitude for My Money Mentors

November 22, 2018 By Deanna 9 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving, all! This month I’ve participated in a thankfulness challenge with my friend Andrea from Saving Joyfully. The idea was to stay focused on gratitude and inspire others to do the same. In light of that challenge and the holiday at hand, I’m writing a tribute to the money mentors throughout my life.

Past & Present Money Mentors

My Parents

I need to start with my folks, who were always good stewards of our family’s resources. They lived on less than they made, saved & invested, and paid cash for their cars. I was a rebellious kid for many reasons and did not learn from their wise money ways until I was much older. However, once I gained some financial literacy I recognized my parents had always been doing the right things with their money.

People who’ve walked with me in recovery

Upon getting sober from drug addiction, I obtained a sponsor, Amber, who is this amazing woman of God. She walked with me through the hard stuff and to this day keeps me accountable.

Amber knew early on I was struggling financially so she made some suggestions on how I could reduce my expenses. She also encouraged me to keep my focus on my recovery first and foremost.

As I progressed in recovery and became more mature, Amber & her husband, Roy, would talk to me about potential plans in tackling my finances. They mentioned that Dave Ramsey has a plan I might consider. Roy also suggested that I start tracking my expenses to the penny every month.

Sister in faith

After about 1 year of being sober, I joined Cuyahoga Valley Church and got plugged into a community with amazing people. It was in a women’s bible study where I met my next money mentor, Patricia. Patricia offered to meet with me one-on-one and help me get on a budget. For the first time in 41 years, I learned the benefits to budgeting.

Patricia had formerly taught Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (FPU) and explained the steps to me. I left her house with this new excitement that financial freedom was possible!

Dave Ramsey

I remember telling my colleague, Carson, that I was doing Dave Ramsey’s baby steps and he was 100% supportive. In fact, he told me he applied a lot of his principles when he got out of debt years prior. He also had a copy of the FPU DVDs. We’d watch them over our lunch hour and I got more and more motivated.

I remember the first time I heard Dave talking about student loans. You see, I had a mix of debt:

Credit cards
A car note
Medical bills
Student loans (the bulk of it)

Anyway, Dave said something that no one had ever told me.

He basically said I didn’t have to keep my student loans around for the next 30 years like a mortgage. I could attack them with a vengeance and get free.

For whatever reason, hearing that statement gave me permission to look at my mountain of debt differently.

My Boss

Somewhere in the process of my debt payoff journey, my boss opened up a Vanguard Simple IRA for us to invest in. He put in 2% for all employees but I mistakenly thought it was a match so I also put in 2%. I didn’t want to lose out on what I believed was free money. At this point, I had nothing saved for retirement so it gave me peace of mind to be doing something here.

Even when one is paying off debt, I think it is wise to take advantage of any employer match on retirement accounts. It is free money and once you automate it, you don’t miss it. It creates a good habit.

Near the end of my debt pay off journey as I started to study our Vanguard investment options more. I learned that the 2% my boss put in was regardless of what we chose to put in. Haha, one of my better mistakes!

My boss is one of my money mentors as he has been one of the biggest cheerleaders in me paying off my debt. Furthermore, he has given me opportunities to teach our whole team about the Vanguard investments options we have access to.

More people of faith

I fully employed the debt snowball and knocked my debts out one-by-one. I was getting some serious momentum.

However, as I was just starting to work on the final one (student loans) I came to a crossroads with my house. I had owned a house since I first got married (1998) and divorced (2000). The particular town I lived in was hit hard by the crash of the market and it was not bouncing back. In fact, my neighborhood was full of abandoned and foreclosed houses and theft was high.

My furnace broke in the middle of winter and I thought about taking on more debt to pour into this sinking asset.

However, I temporarily moved into a ministry house with the pastors of Living Stones Communities. They were kind and supportive to me in my journey. Additionally, I was introduced to a realtor who helped me proceed with short selling my house.

The move into the ministry house became more permanent and I sold or gave away most of my stuff from the house.

My realtor & attorney

After about 1 year of filing the necessary paperwork and working with my realtor, my short sale was declined and my house went into foreclosure. My realtor even went to court with me when I got the scary letter. She never earned a penny from helping me. Although, I did end up sending her gift cards to show my gratitude.

With the foreclosure, I was devastated and distraught. However, I had to proceed so I paused my debt snowball and hired an attorney.

In the end, the bank bought the house back and waived the deficiency. My attorney was the champion in this ending well.

At this point, I remember feeling exasperated. My credit took a huge hit, I lost my house, and I wasn’t sure where to go. In the process, my attorney had said to me that at some point the bottom levels out and it will be time to build myself back up. Wise words.

I knew it was time.

More accountability partners

I met with a woman, Tracie, who was keeping me financially accountable. She helped me slash more items from my budget. Additionally, I mentioned that I was thinking about asking my parents to move in with them. We did some calculations and came up with two years being the amount of time I’d need to pay off the remainder of my debt ($36,000 at this point) and save enough money to potentially pay taxes for the waived deficiency.

Things sometimes come full circle. My parents opened their home to me and I moved in with them in October of 2016 and now I was ready to learn from their wise ways.

Initially, I paid the minimum payment on my debt and saved enough to potentially pay the taxes of the waived deficiency of the foreclosed house.

In the spring of 2017, I hired a CPA for my taxes and learned that I did not have to pay the waived deficiency and so I kept that money parked in my online money market account for emergencies.

Then I went full steam ahead towards debt pay off.

Awesome colleague

The same colleague, Carson, who encouraged me with my debt snowball, turned me onto this little podcast in the Spring of 2017 called ChooseFI.

It took a couple of episodes before I fully understood the concept of financial independence but I remember saying to Carson, what the heck? Who are these people?

Listening to Brad & Jonathan every week on the podcast inspired me to dream about what was possible.

In true Deanna fashion, I dove in headfirst and became very active in the community. It was the motivation I needed to finish my debt payoff journey. Moreover, it got me thinking about investing and a strategy for the next leg of my journey.

Carson bought me JL Collins, The Simple Path to Wealth and I studied it with a vengeance. I was chomping at the bit to get started.

Later when I brought my friend, Shari, into the ChooseFI community, I also gifted her The Simple Path to Wealth. In my opinion, it’s the best place to start for investing 101.

God

Finally, I wouldn’t be who I am today without my faith. God has never given up on me. When I admitted defeat to my addiction, the first thing I did was get down on my knees. I knew I needed help spiritually and naturally. This was really the first step and then all these amazing mentors came into my life.

Sometimes surrender is the most beautiful door to walk through.

My faith is a huge part of my story and gives my life meaning. I know there are bigger things at play here and my life is just one small piece of the puzzle.

Closing Thoughts

I made my final debt payment on December 29, 2017 (9 months sooner than planned), and began my journey towards financial independence at the start of 2018. I was able to meet and thank Dave Ramsey in June of 2018.

So many people have freely helped me along my way and now I get to pass it on and help other women gain control of their financial lives.

I am full of gratitude for my money mentors this Thanksgiving. Transformation is 100% possible. You just gotta believe, get a trusted team, and implement a plan.

If you are starting out financial journey, please let me know if there is any way I can help you…

Is Your Retirement OnTrajectory?

November 19, 2018 By Deanna 2 Comments

When I discovered the (FIRE) Financial Independence Retire Early community, I was motivated to finish my debt pay off journey so I could start maxing out my retirement accounts. I may be a late gamer but I’m good at intensity. I’m now maxing out my retirement accounts, living debt free, and ratcheting up my savings rate. I’ve done the calculations and I estimate that I can hit financial independence around 59 or 60. However, factors in life change so when I was introduced to OnTrajectory Retirement calculator, I realized this was a tool that accounts for the dynamic factors of life.

Necessity is the mother of invention

Let me introduce you to the guy who created this A M A Z I N G tool. His name is Tyson and he has a pretty cool backstory of how he came to create OnTrajectory. Tyson had been looking for a financial planning tool for decades which would update income/expenses over time, track progress, and provide visual feedback.

Tyson realized, after his second daughter was born, in 2013 that they needed a bigger house, a second car, another college fund, two more years of daycare, and the list goes on and on. He had no idea how to “safely” spend on those things. Additionally, he wasn’t sure what these new expenses would do to his plan to become financially independent. There was still no such tool in existence, so he did what any good software engineer would do and he built it! Huzzah!

Becoming an Entrepreneur

Let’s back up and see where Tyson first got bit with the entrepreneur bug. Tyson’s first go around with becoming an entrepreneur was when he was 13 and started a snowball stand.

“Apart from learning how to deal with inventory, cash flow, and the crushing boredom of sitting alone for hours — the biggest lesson I learned that summer was I LOVED being ‘financially independent'”. -Tyson, CEO, OnTrajecory.com

With the money he earned at the age of 13, Tyson bought his first computer and taught himself BASIC. According to Tyson, that began his life-long love of tech and programming.

One would think that Tyson would go onto to study computer programming, right? Wrong. Tyson studied English and Philosophy in college as he was in his “artsy” phase of life. He tended bars in various restaurants and played in several bands. When he graduated with no real job prospects (wait, there were no jobs for philosophizing??), he got back into IT. Fortunately for us, Tyson spent the next 20 years and a programmer, architect, analyst, project manager and ultimately the director of a small company.

The thought process behind OnTrajectory

OnTrajectory was built to fill an individual need which I would argue might be the best reason to build something. If you see a gap and build a tool to bridge that gap, you probably have a useful product…without trying to create a product. After all, when one person is experiencing a gap, chances are there are thousands of other people in that same gap.

“For me, having a plan – even one that may forecast spots of potential danger – it gives me this overwhelming sense of well-being because I can SEE what is going on, it takes away the terrible feeling of not knowing – it’s helped to de-stress and reduce anxiety in my life overall. It’s just a great feeling of having a solid and predictable plan for the future!” –Tyson, CEO, OnTrajecory.com

He wanted something that would be able to answer the question, “when will I be fully financially independent?”

His approach to building it has been centered around the user experience. He created a tool designed to help regular people answer potentially complex questions about their own financial journey. Tyson is very passionate about the mission and loves working on this tool. He has experienced an overwhelming sense of well-being and joy in knowing he has a solid plan and that the major question marks of his future are answered! His hope now is to provide that to others as well.

Getting started with OnTrajectory

So now I’d like to walk you through some of the basics of getting started with OnTrajectory. The purpose of OnTrajectory is to guide you in crafting a plan to see where you are likely to be based on your assumptions. Additionally, it is designed to bring an understanding of how the decisions you make today will affect you years into the future.

Furthermore, you can visually see the impact in tweaking certain expenses, like packing your lunch every day versus buying, and how they affect your retirement savings.

Sometimes, myself included, we go through life without awareness of how our spending habits affect our future. Tracking & planning allows us to be intentional. OnTrajectory is a tool in which to do that.

Entering your data

When you sign up for your free 14-day trial, you’ll be required to enter some data. You can do the minimal here and tweak as you get more comfortable in paying around with it. There are two options for entering data:

Guided Entry
Quick-Start Wizzard

If you choose the former you’ll be asked to enter more data in a step-by-step fashion such as income, expenses & accounts. This way is a more comprehensive approach and what I chose to do. It was never daunting as the program guides you through it.

If you choose the latter, you’ll only need to answer 3 questions (current savings, current annual income, average you save each month) and the program makes assumptions about the rest. This is definitely the quicker method and recommended if you’d rather just get started and tweak later.

Either way, you control your data and can adjust it at any time.

During your 14 day trial period, you’ll receive one tutorial style email per day to cover the different topics. Most of the emails come with a brief video that you can watch and learn.

Income

You are able to set a retirement age and an end age. For me, I’m planning on retiring at 60 and living until I’m 100, at least. 😉

However, you can pick whatever numbers apply to you. Furthermore, inflation is set at 3% but you can adjust that too.

In all my retirement calculations pre-OnTrajectory, I’d been leaving out Social Security Income. This is probably good because we never know what changes can occur here; however, I’m closer to receiving it than the millennials so there is a good chance it’ll be around for me. OnTrajectory lets me see the impact of taking my SSI at 62, 67, and 70. Several months back I wrote a post about SSI and pondered if taking SSI benefits earlier (62) would allow me to do more in retirement.

Interestingly, the math suggests otherwise and I could see this black and white in OnTrajectory. Math always wins! Of course, this is with the assumption that I live a long healthy life. One never knows and so we make choices based on the information we have at hand.

Expenses

The nice thing about expenses is you can pick a starting and end date. For example, you won’t have a mortgage forever. Additionally, your healthcare expenses change when you go onto Medicare at the age of 65 so you can create a medical expense category which spans from now until 65 and then another one for 65 and after.

In regards to spending frequency, you can select monthly, annually or variable. If you choose variable, you’ll enter a percent in the amount category. This could be useful if you are looking to cap your expenses in retirement to say 4%.

OnTrajectory allows you to group several expenses together so that they show as a single line item. For example my credit card monthly expense consists of the following:

Accounts & Taxes

Here is where the fun stuff comes in…your retirement and investment accounts. You’ll be able to enter as many accounts as you have but the top one is special and cannot be deleted. The top account is where you set your tax percentage for pre and post-retirement. Additionally, it’s used first when expenses exceed income (i.e. drawdowns). Furthermore, when Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) occur, this is the account that receives them.

As you can see there is a Growth column. When I’ve done my retirement calculations in the past I’ve often used 7% for my rate of return. However, knowing that I’ll adjust my asset allocations to be a bit more conservative as I approach my wealth preservation phase I knew that % should be smaller. After talking to Tyson on this point, I chose 5.5%.

You’ll also see that when I stop contributing (age 60), it becomes even more conservative at 3%.

Below are the types of accounts you can add:

Depending on which account you choose, the appropriate tax is automatically assigned to it (however, you can manually change it):

Tax-exempt
Tax-annual
Tax-deferred
Tax-deferred (gains only)
Tax-deferred (contributions only)

This non-accountant is glad the program is set up to choose the appropriate tax. Trust me anyone can use and figure this tool out! Furthermore, the daily tutorials are very informative if you want to dig deeper.

Goals

You can set certain financial goals into this program as well:

I set a goal of having $602,000 on this DATE and the program calculated at the rate I’m going, I should achieve this by September 27, 2030.

Moreover, you get a nice visual of your goal on your graph if you check the show box. My goal is shown on the graph below as the red #1. You also can have multiple goals.

Progress

Ideally, you’ll want to be updating your data and tracking your progress several times a year. I just set a reminder in my task manager, Todoist, to update my data & progress quarterly.

I just updated my progress by going to the progress tab and updating the balances of all my accounts. As soon as you start tracking your progress, a green area is added to the graph.

See, I’m on track!

Granted it’s only been three weeks since I started. 🙂

Some other cool features

Are you the type of person who wants to see the data? No problem, they’ve got you covered. To see your data, you’ll just hit “show data” for the specific tab you are under and you’ll see a glorious sheet of the math. Here is my account data (BTW, I’m feeling kinda naked here):

Running Analysis

OnTrajectory offers three different analyses:

Average Growth
Monte Carlo
Historical

Average Growth is the default analysis. Monte Carlo visualizes the likelihood that you’ll be successful with the trajections you’ve defined. Historial uses, um you guessed it, historical data and does it sequentially.

Keep in mind that these analyses are not perfect but do give you a pretty good idea of your potential successes.

When I run the Monte Carlo analysis, here are the results:

It’s a pretty graph! Most importantly, my chances of success right now are at 100%. I’m comfortable with that.

When you log into your account you have a dashboard the far right which will show you:

Success
Final Trajectory
Projected Progress
Peak Assets
Warning (you want this to be a thumbs up)

Here are a few examples with warnings:

And here is an example of a dashboard with a thumbs up:

Closing Thoughts

OnTrajectory has given me much more confidence about my retirement plan. Additionally, I’m able to tweak the data points as the factors in my life change and get visual results. I agree with Tyson in that having a solid plan, which takes the guesswork out, provides a certain peace of mind.

We can never predict the future exactly but we certainly can plan well for it. I will continue to use OnTrajectory as a tool in my retirement planning.

How about you? Does this seem like a tool you’d utilize? Moreover, would you find OnTrajectory coaching useful?