Grimly titled but the death spreadsheet is the most useful spreadsheet I have ever created.

I created the first version of this document back in 2014 when I felt like I was trapped in an awful job, earning quite well but job stress was out of control and I wondered if I had to tolerate this level of angst and frustration for the rest of my life.

To wrestle back some form of control, I decided to create a spreadsheet to work out exactly how much we needed to earn to live a reasonable life – for the rest of our lives. To build this spreadsheet, David and I had many conversations, over a period of time, to think about and design the type of financially independent lifestyle we would be happy with. An extravagant, luxurious one? No – not really our thing. A really nice lifestyle that includes international travel once a year, travelling within Australia, going to other capital cities, money for our hobbies/passions, time for volunteering and one home renovation project a year? Yes, definitely. I’ll take that version of financial independence any day of the week.

In 2014 we were close to paying out our mortgage, so our expenses were about to change considerably. I also knew both had good superannuation or retirement savings, so I wanted to understand, excel spreadsheet cell by cell how much we needed to earn in order to be financially independent.

And so the death spreadsheet was born. On the top line, I created a table out to David’s average life expectancy and mine (there is a little age difference 😊). Then I plotted out our expected income and expenses until we died. Fun, huh!?!

Key assumptions for the spreadsheet:

1. Indexation of 2% for wages and our superannuation pensions (except for mine – I’ll take a flat rate)
2. Inflation over our lifetimes (around 2%)
3. Conservative estimated earnings on our investments at 5% over the next thirty or so years.

I created detailed expenses tabs that adjusts for this year and next when our expenditure circumstances will remain the same. In 2020 we expect to be paying for only one child in total – the other children may be living here and eating with us, but they will be largely responsible for their own expenses.

I have highlighted the current year we are in, and the year my husband’s superannuation commences ( I LOVE to see those two drawing closer together – means we are closer to financial independence).

You can see our net result bounces around a little but that’s ok – over the 12 year period, it works out about even. In my next post, I will detail how I have calculated our expenses over this period, and how I have calculated how our investments will support us in our two stage financial independence plan, paying down like an annuity.

Excel has saved my sanity! Never thought I would say that out loud to the world…..