I recently got a hot tip from a friend I trust and respect. Gasem mentioned that he'd enrolled in an online video course on creating a Financial Independence spreadsheet taught by blogger and math whiz Actuary on Fire (henceforth "AoF," which I imagine to be the sound of a sucker punch to your cerebral cortex). He'd found it to be outstanding.
Explanatory Digression Break
I'm a math guy, but not a spreadsheet guy. I was a former mathlete in high school. You'll be relieved to learn, dear reader, that dating with a stethoscope in later life more than made up for the challenges of dating with a calculator watch in early life.
Some on my math team were recognized as innately gifted. I was the "hard worker" of the group, which is what the faculty advisor calls the kid who isn't a native speaker of equations but demonstrates an admirable work ethic. If you believe in growth mindset, however, work ethic and practice are ultimately the qualities that matter most.
Spreadsheets Intimidate Me
The last time I'd used a spreadsheet, the dominant software was Lotus 1-2-3. Consequently, Excel and its free google equivalent left me exclaiming "Holy Sheets!," and seemed far too sophisticated for my cave-man level skills. Which is why I jumped at the opportunity to learn something designed for students who need their hands held.
AoF joined the Rockstar Finance Forum shortly after I did, and I recalled his jovial and generous personality from a few discussion threads we both partook of. So I thought nothing of reaching out to my old compadre, who was kind enough to let me test drive his video course on Udemy for free.
The course consists of bite-sized videos ranging from 1 to 14 minutes in length, each with a discrete spreadsheet skill set or concept that is covered.
Let's Look Under The Hood
AoF starts gently, introducing you to the concept of cashflow modeling as a secret actuarial tool of the trade. His spreadsheet allows for multiple sources of income (and expenses) that may vary over time. Some remain predictable over years, like a salary or social security. Others reflect one-time windfalls or expenses like property sales, a child's college education or major home repairs.
Since many docs on the road to FI have side hustles and additional streams of income, this is a great way of accounting for a multi-income household.
Accounts are grouped into pre-tax and post-tax, with the ability to use different predictions for their respective returns. One can also designate different withdrawal rates for pre-tax and post-tax accounts. The effect is a very customizable prediction tool with an extremely granular level of detail.
This naturally lends itself to bouts of prolonged experimentation - you can now see what happens if you work a couple of additional years, if your spouse retires earlier, or how finances might be affected if you opt to have that third kid.
I spent two hours in the blink of an eye playing with the customized spreadsheet I created, but it left me reconsidering the best strategy for our glide path toward retirement.
Highlights
I love having the video lectures to refer back to if I forget a particular command or lose track of how to perform a function.
I also enjoyed having the spreadsheet ready to download in the identical format used in the lecture series, so that I could take a functional version and simply change the numbers to reflect my situation.
The ability to change individual variables and immediately see the impact this has on predicted retirement income makes abstract concepts far easier to grasp.
AoF is an outstanding lecturer, and he used simple language that steered clear of jargon. I never felt condescended to or less than for my ignorance of the subject matter. The icing on the cake was AoF's charming British accent (it reminded me of Mike Myers' old SNL skits as Simon, the British child who likes to make "drawrings").
I found little to dislike about the course.
While the spreadsheet does not account for the effects of taxation, this is announced at the outset as being beyond the scope of the course. There is intimation that an advanced course will follow. I look forward to enrolling, and hope that taxation will be included in the next version.
There was liberal use of anthropomorphic animals, perhaps intended to add levity and make a challenging topic seem approachable. While this felt distracting during a couple of lectures, it fortunately never reached the fiasco of 1997's release of Microsoft Word with Clippy, the animated paperclip.
Target Audience
I'd recommend this course for anyone who seeks to factor in complexity when they model their financial future, for example:
- Dual-income households where one partner may have variable income over time as they ramp down work to care for children, then ramp up as kids grow independent.
- Persons who plan for a "mushy" retirement; instead of going from salary to no salary, these folks plan to continue earning fluctuating income in some capacity.
- Persons with multiple income streams such as rental real estate investments.
- Dual-income households where retirement dates and post-retirement income is likely to vary.
- Partners of different ages and different career stages who would like to model how staggered retirements will affect household cashflow.
- Control freaks (you know who you are) who enjoy futzing with variables to model their effects on cashflow in retirement.
AoF reminds me of that buddy in college who allowed you to knock on his door whenever you had trouble with a problem set, and was never too busy to answer a question.
His passion is obviously in teaching others, as reflected in the course's modest pricing ($49 at time of this post). At one and half hours total, it's a small time investment for a high-impact educational supplement.
I make no commission if you buy the course - but if you are seeking to reach Financial Independence and want to add a powerful tool to your tool belt, I was extremely impressed and would recommend this course without reservation.
Click here to purchase Actuary on Fire's online course, Create A Kickass Financial Independence Spreadsheet.
Comments 19
Great review and pretty much spot on with my experience of the course. If you’re not a spreadsheet jock there is no time like the present to pick up some chops. When it comes to spreadsheets GIGO (garbage in = garbage out) so it’s nice to work a cash flow sheet that’s reliable from the start, open to modification, and the ability to quickly return to square 1 if you get the logic wrong. It’s a quantum better than the typical bogglead 4th grade math (4 x 25) approach to cash flow. Knowledge is power, this thing makes you powerful regarding your particular financial situation.
Author
I think I just felt a chest hair sprout while using the spreadsheet.
It’s a wonderful tool, but more importantly, it’s a very easy to follow teacher. Without that the utility would be far less.
Thanks for the review – I thought that was very fair. I’m glad you found it useful and not intimidating.
To Gasem’s point I wanted to make it easily tailored to your own situation. So the cashflow approach was the most transparent.
Author
I truly enjoyed it, and had to reach to find something that was not to my liking.
It’s wonderful to have a tool like this and understand how to use it without having needed to create it myself, which would have required more remedial education.
Thanks for the gift AoF!
Appreciate the review CD. Having recommendations from Gasem and you already speaks volumes about the course. I have enjoyed AOF’s posts on POF as well.
Author
AoF, PoF. Zowie. Pow. The acronyms are starting to read like 1950s colorized Batman fight scene from my childhood, Xrayvsn.
Like you I have a lot of facility with reading spreadsheets and zero with creating them. I had been trying to get something together to use for months when this AOF course came out and it’s exactly what I needed. Fun too. Highly recommend!
Author
Happy to hear from another satisfied student! I’ve had loads of fun tweaking the numbers and watching the immediate effect on the spreadsheet (but I’m weird like that).
Thanks for piping in, NAFW!
It’s wild that after spending hours building fast-paced trivia challenges at Name 100 Women where memory is everything, I found myself losing track of basic Excel functions in this review; Crispy Doc’s point about how the customizable cashflow modeling lets you experiment with variable income streams really resonates as a way to stress-test your actual financial “memory” alongside your mental recall.
The detail about modeling specific windfalls like property sales or a child’s college tuition really highlights the granular control this spreadsheet offers for complex household income. It’s a refreshing shift from the structured narrative testing I do over at Omegaverse Quiz, where I am currently mapping out how personality traits influence story arcs.
The section on testing different variables like extended work years or additional children really resonates with me. I find that kind of scenario planning fascinating, even though my daily focus is usually on visualizing geography through sketching challenges at Country Draw. It’s interesting how both fields rely on adjusting parameters to see the best outcome, whether that’s optimizing retirement funds or refining a country outline.
The cashflow model that layers pre-tax and post-tax income with different withdrawal rates is genuinely useful — I was digging through my own spreadsheet setup last night and realized I never accounted for one-time windfalls like property sales or major repairs. Exploring new perspectives like this is always a welcome break from my daily work at Instagram Transcript.
The section on modeling multiple varying income streams really made me pause and rethink my own financial projections. It’s a nice mental break from tinkering with beat-locked motion sync and character swap exports over at Bulin 47 AI.
I was fascinated by the specific details about modeling multi-income households and varying withdrawal rates for pre-tax versus post-tax accounts. It makes me think about the narrative structure of financial data in a different way. While I usually spend my time experimenting with visual storytelling by turning text into short clips on AI Video Generator Free, seeing how complex variables interact in a spreadsheet sparks some interesting design inspiration for my own projects.
I found the detail about using actuarial cashflow models to test scenarios like working a couple of extra years to be fascinating, even if spreadsheets aren’t my thing. Reading about financial planning provides a nice mental break from the daily grind of running AI facial analysis and PSL rating experiments over at PSL Rating.
The idea that building a complex cashflow model can actually shift your retirement strategy is fascinating, especially since I usually spend my time building short, 14-second visual reveals on Unforgettable 24 AI rather than tracking long-term financial variables. It’s a stark contrast to the quick, punchy edits I do for car reveal videos, but that attention to granular detail in the spreadsheet seems just as crucial as nailing a seamless lens-cover transition.
I appreciate the detail on modeling multi-income households, which really helped me see the granular control possible in financial planning. It’s a nice contrast to the creative experimentation I do testing photo-to-video workflows on AI Kissing Generator, where I’m usually focused on visual synthesis rather than actuarial precision.
Honestly, spending two hours tinkering with those granular withdrawal rates is the ultimate stress test, which is a nice mental break from my usual loop of dropping two photos into HOTEL LOBBY AI to generate rap duo videos. It’s wild seeing how different the variables get when you really dig into the actuarial modeling side of things.
The detailed breakdown of how AoF’s cashflow modeling handles variable income streams is fascinating, but I’m taking a mental refresh from that spreadsheet work after a day of building AI music video generators on Burning Bridges AI. It’s a nice switch from visualizing viral clips to optimizing financial glide paths.