u/Economy-Analysis1368

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about how people actually model their path to FI.

I'm a CPA, and I ended up building a personal finance app with my sister because I couldn't find something that let me easily model the messier parts of real life.

Most FIRE calculators seem to assume a fairly straight line: current net worth → annual contributions → retirement → withdrawals.

But real life isn't always like that.

The part I built that I'm most interested in is phase-based projection.

You can set up different periods of your life with different assumptions, for example:

Working → Career break → Back to work → FI

Each phase can have different income, spending, contributions, withdrawals and return assumptions.

Then you can create separate scenarios and compare them.

For example:

• Keep working until 40
• Take 2 years off at 35
• Work part-time for a few years
• Increase savings by $10k/year
• Move somewhere with a lower cost of living
• Retire earlier but spend more

And see how each one changes the projected net-worth trajectory.

The rest of Anvi is the more traditional personal finance side — statement importing, smart transaction categorization that learns from your corrections, spending analysis, budgeting based on historical spending, recurring transactions, net worth tracking, etc.

One other difference: there are no bank connections. You upload a PDF/CSV statement and Anvi extracts the transactions. The original statement is discarded rather than stored.

It's live at myanvi.co and works in a browser on phone or laptop. We're planning App Store/Google Play availability in September.

I'm not really trying to convince anyone to use another finance app. I'm more curious about how other people here actually do this.

Do you model different life scenarios when planning for FI, or do you mostly use one projection and update it as things change?

If you already have a spreadsheet/tool that does this really well, I'd genuinely be interested in seeing what your setup looks like.

I've love to hear your thoughts/ideas! Thank you!

I'm a CPA in Canada and over the past year I've become a little obsessed with financial planning tools.

A lot of the tools I've used are good at showing you where you are today — net worth, spending, investments, savings rate, etc.

What I kept wanting was something that let me answer a slightly different question:

"What happens if my life doesn't follow the exact path I'm on today?"

So I ended up building a personal finance app with my sister.

The feature I'm most interested in getting feedback on is the projection tool.

Instead of having one set of assumptions for your entire projection, you can break your future into different phases.

For example:

Phase 1 — Working

• Current income
• Spending
• Annual savings/contributions
• Expected return

Phase 2 — Career break

• Lower/no income
• Different spending
• Potential portfolio withdrawals

Phase 3 — Back to work

• New income
• New savings rate
• Different expenses

Phase 4 — FI

• No employment income
• Portfolio withdrawals
• Ongoing spending

You can then see how those phases affect the projected net-worth curve.

The other part is being able to create separate scenarios and compare them.

So instead of just asking "when will I hit FI?", you can play around with:

• What if I take two years off?
• What if I increase my savings by $10k/year?
• What if I work part-time for a few years?
• What if I move somewhere with a lower cost of living?
• What if I retire earlier but spend more?
• What if my income changes substantially?

I'm not trying to pretend that a projection can predict the future. It's really more of a way to make the tradeoffs visible.

The rest of the app is the more traditional personal-finance stuff — importing transactions, categorization that learns from your corrections, spending analysis, budgeting based on historical spending, net worth tracking, recurring transactions, etc.

I also deliberately went with statement uploads rather than bank connections. You upload a PDF/CSV statement, it processes the transactions, and the original statement is discarded.

I've been working on this for long enough that I have no idea anymore whether the projection idea is genuinely useful or just something I personally find interesting.

For people here who are already doing FI planning: how do you currently model different paths or life changes?

Spreadsheet? FIRE calculator? Something else? Or do you mostly just have one projection and update it periodically?

I'm particularly interested in what your current setup doesn't let you model easily.

Hi everyone,

I've spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at budgeting apps over the past year, partly because I wanted one for myself and partly because I kept thinking, why doesn't something just do all of this in one place?

I'm a CPA and built Anvi with my sister, who's a civil engineer.

It's not really trying to be YNAB or Monarch. The idea was to give you a more complete picture of your finances - not just where your money went, but what you're doing with it now and where it could take you.

You can upload your bank or credit-card statements as a PDF or CSV instead of connecting your bank account. Anvi extracts the transactions, detects duplicates to flag potential scams, figures out income vs. expenses, and categorizes everything. If you correct a category, it learns from that and applies your preference to future transactions.

Some of the smart features we built are:

• Spending analysis - see where your money is actually going by month, category, and merchant
• Smart budgeting - instead of picking completely arbitrary budget numbers, Anvi looks at your historical spending and suggests what your budget could look like
• Net worth tracking - see your overall financial position rather than just your monthly spending
• Net worth projector - model different income, savings, spending and return assumptions for different phases in your life and see how they change your future
• Scenario comparison - create different "phases of life" and compare what happens if your circumstances change
• Recurring transactions - set up recurring income and expenses so you don't have to keep entering them
• Trip tracking - group transactions from a trip and see what you actually spent on it
• Learning categorization - the more you use it, the less work you should have to do

One thing we deliberately don't do is connect directly to your bank. You download the statement yourself, Anvi processes it, and the original statement file is discarded rather than stored as a document.

It's live at https://myanvi.co now. The app will be available in Apple and Google Play Store next month.

We're still early, so I'm genuinely curious what people who have already used YNAB, Monarch, Copilot, spreadsheets, etc. think.

What is the thing you still feel is missing from the personal finance apps you've tried?

I'd love to hear your feedback.

Thank you!! and we appreciate your feedback!