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MEET THE LATEST feature added to HumbleDollar—as well as the website’s first calculator: the Two-Minute Checkup.
How does it work? All you need to do is input up to nine pieces of information, the sort of stuff most of us know off the top of our head. There’s no need to create an account or link to your brokerage firm or bank, and none of your information is saved on HumbleDollar or anywhere else. Once you input your info, hit the “results” button and the calculator will offer insights across 10 areas of your financial life. It’s that easy.
The Checkup has been tested by me and countless others, and—fingers crossed—it should offer sensible suggestions, no matter what your financial situation. Still, a calculator like this is only as good as the assumptions that underpin it. Want to know more? All the gory details can be found here.
The Checkup was first developed in 2017 by me and Derek Mayer, my partner in a business venture that never got off the ground. But it existed only as a spreadsheet until this year, when HumbleDollar contributor and software engineer Sanjib Saha turned it into computer code—and he did it free of charge. Yes, you read that right.
Intrigued? Please take the Two-Minute Checkup—and, if you like what you see, please share it with friends and family. I believe the Checkup could help a lot of folks with their financial life. I hope you agree.
I have been thinking and thinking about this since I did the checkup. My results I thought were a little skewed since we live on so much less than we make, but lots of the suggestions were spot on, and we have done. What I wonder about is if the check up is aimed at anyone, or just high earners? Or just FIRE people? And are you trying to provide this for a US audience, or worldwide? If US, I was thinking that Social Security is such a large part of the average American’s retirement income. I know it would be hard to add that component to the checkup, but maybe there would be a way to include it in a more beefed up way in the suggestions? Not a computer person, so idk how hard it would be to add.
Great! I’ll be sending the link to some family and friends.
Thank you for sharing it with others, Nate. Hope they find it useful.
Thank YOU Sanjib for helping getting it up for everyone to use. That was very kind of you to donate your time and skillset.
I’ll be succinct. Spot. On. Maybe a bit is confirmation bias, but the tool recommended everything we already do (I’m a longtime reader, back to the WSJ days), and this made me feel pretty good we’ve charted a solid path. Thanks!
Thanks — glad you like it!
Many thanks to those who contributed to this tool. While there were no surprises in my results, it’s helpful especially to compare with possible outlier results from other comparable tools available online.
Thank you. Glad that you found it helpful.
This is a great tool. Many thanks to you and Derek Mayer and hats off to Sanjib Saha for transforming it to an easy to use application. (free of charge!).
Thank you, Paula. The pleasure and privilege are mine.
Yes, thanks to Sanjib for his generosity.
Thank you for the kind words, HumbleGardener.
I’m retired and have a pension and Social Security. I could not enter these into the annual salary box. Since these are significant and indexed to inflation, I suggest you add a way to include them.
Thanks for trying it out. If you tell the calculator you’re retired, you presumably have little or nothing in the way of salary or wages, which is why the income box becomes disabled. Remember, penslons and Social Security are different from salary and wages.