3-YEAR GOAL PLANNING

For 3-year+/- goal planning, Chat GPT can do quick calculations -- amazing!

I know nothing about investing but this is me starting. 

I love spreadsheets (I actually have a course called "Spreadsheet Love") but that doesn’t mean I know how to calculate compound interest. Chat GPT is perfect for this. Here’s what’s incredible: I asked about contributing different monthly amounts over 1, 3, 5 and 10 years and you quickly see what will work best. 

Also, I asked how much I’d need to contribute to accrue $80k (house downpayment if ever in this lifetime) and the incredible thing is that you only need to save $117/month with $5,000 semi-annual contributions at 12% interest and if you up the monthly number, it doesn’t make much of a difference because of compounding in the 5th year. So you should NOT contribute more monthly to reach a goal like this!

I got the 12% rate from the average return of the Fidelity Magellan Mutual Fund (FMAGX) so I was actually being conservative.

    •    Minimum investment: $0
    •    Expense ratio: 0.77%
    •    1-year return: 31.25%
    •    3-year return: 14.33%
    •    5-year return: 17.62%
    •    10-year return: 12.61%
    •    Lifetime return: 15.98%
    •    Yield: 0.30%

 What do you think?