Financial Fate is one heck of a freeware financial planning program. Unlike most programs which let you enter in fairly simple stuff like income and outgoings, expenses etc, FF digs deep into your life and lets you record every miniscule item of financial activity in your family’s life out to the end of time. Or at least your time.
The software delivers an intimate view of your net worth throughout your whole life, even down to displaying a massively disturbing snapshot of what you’re going to be worth at the moment you breathe your last. Now of course that’s a hugely ambitious goal, and Black Swan car crashes and disease can have a habit of crushing the best laid plans of human beans, but even so, it’s a fascinating idea.
It’s impossible to cover everything that comes with this program, so suffice to say that it’s got to be the most comprehensive of its type we’ve ever seen. That doesn’t mean it’s any more useful than simple budgeting software, because it probably isn’t. That’s because it’s impossible to predict further out than 3 years nowadays and a lot of the underlying assumptions can be trashed in the flash of a President’s eye, but the powerful what-if scenarios, and other clever reports of FF really make it stand out as a carefully thought out piece of work.
Products such as Quicken & Money are great for monthly budgeting. Financial Fate, however, is a much more robust and sophisticated tool that is highly effective at multi-year forecasting and financial planning for all time horizons – near, medium, and long-term. Financial Fate generates an extensive array of Reports including the line-item-detail of year-by-year cash-flow projections, tax plans, investment plans, balance sheets, etc. As an example, the Tax Reports show over 100 line items including the details within adjusted gross income, itemized deductions, marginal rates, state taxes, etc.
'Fate', seems to be the wrong word. 'Future' might be more appropriate.