Finance

Finance compares financial independence scenarios. You set assumptions across Parameters, Inflation, and Withdrawals, then Calculate to compare the outcomes in the Chart and the Table. Every calculation is saved to History with its assumptions attached.

Two properties of the model are worth knowing before you read any output.

It projects a range, not a date. Rather than producing one answer, the planner runs a separate year-by-year projection for every return rate between your minimum and maximum. What you get back is the spread of outcomes your assumptions permit, and the lowest return that still avoids running out.

It adds nothing along the way. There is no contributions input. Every projection is what your current portfolio becomes if you add nothing more to it, grown at each return rate and drawn down by your withdrawal schedule. If you are asking whether you could stop contributing and let the balance carry you, that is the question this model answers directly.

Every figure here is modeled from the assumptions you enter. Minou does not connect to a bank, does not know your real balances, does not yet track net worth, and does not give financial advice.

Comparing scenarios in the FI Scenario Planner

Parameters

The Parameters tab holds your baseline assumptions.

Initial parameters

Current Age — your age in years
Life Expectancy — sets how long the withdrawal schedule runs
Initial Portfolio Value — the balance every projection starts from. Annual expenses × 25 is a reasonable figure if you do not have one to hand

That starting balance can be either of 2 things, and both are useful:

Where you stand today — your invested net worth, meaning what you hold less what you owe against it. This answers "given what I have, what happens from here?"
A target you want to test — a number you are working toward. This answers "would a portfolio that size survive the schedule I have planned?", which is often the more useful question as you get close to your number. A target that depletes at 78 under half your return scenarios is worth knowing about while you can still change something.

Every scenario rests on that one figure, and today you work it out and type it in yourself. A Net Worth view is planned inside Finance that will track assets and liabilities over time and derive the where-you-stand-today version methodically, so it stops being an estimate you reconstruct at each check-in. It is not built yet — it appears in the Finance navigation marked Coming Soon.

Estimated rate of return

The minimum and maximum rates set the nominal annual return assumptions the planner works between. They are scenario boundaries, not predictions. Step size sets the increment between scenarios — a smaller step draws more comparison lines without adding any precision to them.

With Apply Inflation Adjustment on, Minou converts each nominal return to a real return using the inflation rate for that age, and balances and withdrawals are shown in today's purchasing power. With it off, the projection is shown in nominal dollars.

CAPE adjustment

CAPE compares current market prices against 10 years of inflation-adjusted earnings. Apply CAPE Adjustment shifts the center of your return scenarios toward a long-horizon valuation estimate while keeping the spread between your minimum and maximum intact.

CAPE is one input to a long-term scenario. It is not a short-term market-timing signal.

CAPE weighting

CAPE Weight blends the CAPE-derived estimate with the midpoint of your manual range. A higher weight gives CAPE more influence; a lower weight keeps the scenarios closer to your own assumptions.

What CAPE is, and how it moves your scenarios

CAPE (cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings, or Shiller P/E) divides current market price by average inflation-adjusted earnings over 10 years. Smoothing earnings across a decade strips out the business cycle, so a high CAPE suggests stocks are expensive against history and long-run returns are likely lower.

Minou turns CAPE into an expected real return with a valuation-based regression:

expected real return = 0.17 − 0.032 × ln(CAPE)

That real figure becomes a nominal return by adding a long-run inflation assumption of about 2.5%. CAPE Weight then blends it with the midpoint of your manual range:

center = CAPE estimate × weight + your midpoint × (1 − weight)

The width of your original range is preserved and re-centered on that blended value, so the distance between your optimistic and pessimistic scenarios is unchanged — only where they sit moves. A weight of 0.7, the default, leans mostly on CAPE; 0 ignores it.

Inflation

The Inflation tab models how purchasing power changes over time.

Inflation Ranges set a base rate for each age range. Add several when you expect inflation to differ across life stages.

Custom Inflation Overrides replace the range rate for one specific age. The range applies again at the next age unless another override follows it.

When inflation adjustment is on, every scenario converts nominal returns to real returns using this schedule. Comparing results with the adjustment on and off shows how much of a projection is purchasing power and how much is nominal growth.

An inflation schedule with a single-age override

Withdrawals

The Withdrawals tab sets what you plan to spend each year.

Withdrawal schedule

Withdrawal Ranges set an annual amount in today's dollars for each inclusive age range. Minou uses the inflation schedule to work out the matching nominal amount for each future year. Use separate ranges where spending changes across life stages.

Custom Age Overrides replace the range amount for one age. The range applies again at the next age unless another override follows it.

Check the full schedule for gaps and overlapping ranges before relying on a projection. An age with neither a range nor an override is treated as zero spending.

A withdrawal schedule with a single-age override

Chart

After Calculate, the Chart tab plots your portfolio balance across every return scenario.

Each line is one annual return assumption from within your min-to-max range.
Select and deselect scenarios to narrow the comparison.
The chart follows the inflation-adjustment toggle, showing nominal or purchasing-power terms accordingly.

More lines do not mean more certainty. The spread is there to show how the plan behaves under different assumptions, not to narrow them down to one.

Portfolio balance across every return scenario

Table

The Table tab shows the same projection as numbers: one row per age, one column per scenario.

Use it where exact values are hard to read off the chart — the age a particular scenario depletes, or the withdrawal amount in a given year.

History

Every calculation is saved automatically, and History keeps the last 25.

Select an entry to restore its assumptions and recalculate.
The current scenario is highlighted.
Delete an entry from its context menu.
Each entry shows its portfolio value, age range, average withdrawal, and when it last changed.

Before your first calculation, History is empty and points you at Calculate.

Using History for a check-in

The assumptions behind a projection age faster than the projection does. Your portfolio moves, your spending estimate changes, and a year of market history arrives whether you asked for it or not.

Because each entry keeps the assumptions it was run with, a periodic re-run is a comparison rather than a fresh guess:

Open the most recent entry to restore what you last assumed.
Update the initial portfolio value, and any inflation or withdrawal figures that have moved.
Calculate. The new entry is saved alongside the old one.

Comparing the 2 shows which of your assumptions did the work, and whether the change came from the portfolio or from what you now expect to spend.

Step 2 is the manual part when you are projecting from where you stand today. Working out that figure is the piece the planned Net Worth view is meant to take over, so a check-in becomes reading a number rather than reassembling one. Check-ins that test a target instead are unaffected — you choose that figure.