Finances

Doing finances can be a scary thing.

I just updating the spreadsheet I use to track our financial health -- where the money comes from, in round numbers, and where it goes, in round numbers. The spreadsheet isn't particularly sophisticated, but it does things like apply an assumed inflationary rate, an assumed average return on investments and savings, and assumed Social Security Administration COLA rate. That last one is one of the two changes that I just made, the other being to move the final year of the spreadsheet out about ten years. I did that because Lady Bird Johnson died, and she was 94. My spreadsheet ended with my wife being 85, and that death made me think 'well, my wife's grandmother lived till she was 93, and her mother is 82 and in good health... better bump it out'. So I did.

The good news is, it doesn't make me immediately panic. The bad news is, it doesn't make me whistle for joy, either.