Fingine: Thoughts on Side Projects and Financial Simulation
9 months ago
- #personal finance
- #software development
- #financial planning
- The author aims to retire early (around 55) and take jobs without financial consideration beforehand.
- They use the coast FIRE calculator but find it insufficient, exploring alternatives like ProjectionLab.
- Previously attempted to build 'Fingine', a financial simulation engine, but faced challenges due to lack of finance knowledge and unfamiliarity with Rust.
- Plans to revive Fingine with revised goals: focus on Canadian financial rules, allow custom code for tax credits/deductions, and support Monte Carlo simulations.
- Non-goals include not tailoring to others' financial situations, not focusing on adoption, and not prioritizing performance beyond personal needs.
- Considering Elixir for the project, planning to learn it through books and exercises, and conceptualizing simulations as matrix manipulations.
- Lists financial primitives like accounts, liabilities, income/expense events, and tax systems, suggesting matrix representation for account values and events.
- Mentions the need to learn double-entry accounting (hledger) and further refine the matrix approach for financial simulations.