This post is part of spreadcheats series.
Today we will learn a fascinating little feature in excel called “goal seek”.
But what good is a feature if we cant find a use for it? So we will build a simple retirement calculator using excel.
Before plunging in to the complex retirement calculations, let us spend a bunch of words understanding what this goal seek is all about.
What is goal seek in excel?
We can think of goal seek as opposite of formulas. Formulas tell you what is the output of a bunch of variables used in an equation (for eg. sumproduct is an equation involving + and *). Goal seek tells you what inputs you need to give in order to get certain output.
For example, you can use goal seek to solve a linear equation or find the internal return rate (IRR) of an investment.
Now that you understand goal seek, let us plan your retirement. 🙂
Make a financial model to estimate your monthly savings to meet retirement goals.
(Note: the image shows commas according to Indian currency formatting.)
In order to proceed, we would need some data, like,
(1) What is your current age?
(2) What is your expected retirement age?
(3) How much do you think you will spend every month when you retire (of course in today’s prices)
(4) Your expectation of inflation (%)?
(5) Your expected return (%) on investments?
Once the data is available, we will need to calculate the following,
I have shown the worksheet on the right with some dummy data.
(6) The yearly expenses at the time of retirement: (3) * (1+(4))^((2)-(1))*12
(7) Corpus required to generate the above amount every year (and leave the principle behind): (6)/(5)
(If these calculations are overwhelming, download the excel retirement calculator workbook here.)
We know how much corpus is needed.
We can use FV() formula to determine the future value of a series of payments made periodically and compounded at a given interest rate.
We know how much the FV() out come should be, but we don’t know how much the input (monthly investment) should be.
This is where goal seek is going to help us.
Let us assume the monthly investment amount will be in cell A5. Let us also assume, the interest rate is in cell A4, retirement age is in A3, current age is in A2.
We will write the FV formula in cell A6 like this = -FV(A4/12,(A3-A2)*12,A5)
(we have to negate FV since it uses weird accounting notations)
Since the cell A5 is blank, the FV will show the value as 0.
Now, we will use goal seek to find out how much cell A5 should have so that A6 will be calculated to the corpus amount required.
Go to Data tab and click on What if analysis and select goal seek. (In excel 2003, it should be in tools menu)
See this screen cast to understand how the goal seek works:
The goal seek window has 3 inputs. The cell you need to change. The cell you want to set and the value to set.
Once you use the goal seek it will find the correct (or closest) value to meet the goal and displays it. If you press OK, the value will be placed in the cell (in our case, in A5)
That is all.
Download the Retirement Calculator Excel Worksheet and play with it
Click here to download the retirement calculator worksheet. Follow the instructions in the workbook to see this example for yourself. Change values to find the amount that you need to save.
Do you find goal seek feature useful?
What do you do with excel goal seek? Do you use it in your modeling, planning worksheets? Tell me your experiences and ideas using comments.
Additional resources:
- Read remaining posts in Spreadcheats series: Become a spreadsheet guru by learning these nifty hacks.
- Excel financial formulas – Help on NPV, FV, PV and more
- Understand why you should start early when it comes to retirement savings
- Buy or rent calculator in Excel – calculate returns on property investments
PS: the retirement calculation steps are derived from this excellent article on smart investor
20 Responses to “Untrimmable Spaces – Excel Formula”
Hi Chandoo,
First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Wish you and your family another fruitful year ahead.
To answer your question: Power Query is the best way to trim. 🙂
Btw, if Power Query is not available, then formula would absolutely do... but did you forget to mention also Char 32?
One more question: Is the trailing minus meant to be a negative number? Maybe only the sender knows... 🙂
Cheers,
I just see your PQ way, it is amazing, I think it is the most simple way.
No idea how it did it?
I know these spaces can be a real pain but these days I advise Excel users to learn and use Flash Fill and that will learn what to do pretty quickly.
Highlight range to be cleaned. Then, in Replace, hold down the Alt key and type 0160. Replace with nothing.
I accomplished this by writing a macro to go through all the possible unprintable characters. Looped through the range.
@Steve
Brute force works just as well, its just slower
I use a different method here. First, I will copy the data from Excel and paste it in a notepad. In Notepad, I will do a Find Blanks (Space " ") and Replace (Empty) with nothing.
Then you can copy the data from Notepad and paste it back to Excel which will be a perfect number as you desire.
But Thanks for the formula. Its probably the 2nd out of 8 tricks as Chandoo mentioned. Waiting for the rest among 8 from other users 🙂
Hi....
You don't always need notepad for that. I use the Find/Replace is Excel works just fine.
I don't understand the x's. Why weren't they removed in the formula? Or are they part of some sort of numeric formatting that I'm not familiar with? I saw how you handled the non-breaking spaces and the dashes, but am confused about what role the x's played in all this.
Thanks!
Hi Andrew ,
The xs have been used solely to demarcate the actual data text ; thus , without the x in place at the end of text , as in :
x 4,124,500.00 x
it would be impossible to know that there are unwanted trailing characters , in this case , after the last 0.
These xs are not part of the original data text , nor are they used in the formulae ; they are put in only so that readers can visualize the individual items of data as they are in practice. Think of them as imaginary delimiters.
Oh, that makes sense! Thank you for the explanation. I had a feeling it was something along those lines.
You can type this character using the Keys Alt+0160.
Very useful to replace this Character using Find and Select resource.
For many years, my jobs have included ETL tasks and I built this macro to help long, long ago. I tweak it every now and again. Many co-workers, past and present, have it wired to a button on their toolbar.
Sub Clean_and_Trim()
'CAUTION: Strips leading zeroes -- do not use on zipcodes, etc.
If Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
Revert = 1
ElseIf Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual Then
Revert = 0
End If
For Each Cell In Selection
For x = Len(Cell.Value) To 1 Step -1
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 160 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(160), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 32 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(32), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
Next x
If Cell.Value "" Then
Cell.Value = Application.Clean(Application.Trim(Cell.Value))
End If
Next
If Revert = 1 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
ElseIf Revert = 0 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
End If
End Sub
This is awesome! What if you have several characters you need to have removed? What would be the easiest way as I can imagine there are several ways.?
# - 35
$ - 36
- 62
/ - 47
, - 44
. - 46
" - 34
: - 58
This is typical case of a Fitbit data export to Csv file. Each number has CHAR160 as thousand separator.. how smart Fitbit, thank you 😉
By the way, i prefer to copy the character, and use find and replace.
Sometimes it happens if you copy a table from outlook and paste it in excel. When you apply formula on those cells you will get error. What i use to do is
copy one character that looks like space,
select the entire range,
go to Find and replace,
Paste the copied character in Find option
Leave the replace option unfilled..
click on replace all..
All the errors shall be converted in to proper values..
Process looks lengthier.. but it is one of the simplest method
If Clean, Trim, and Substitute, or Find and Replace does not complete the job, I usually enter a value of 1 in an empty cell. Copy the Value of 1, Highlight the range of text numbers, and Paste Special, Values, Multiply. This site is great!
You can use Dose for Excel Add-In that can quickly clean huge data with one click besides more than +100 new functions and features to add to your Excel to save time and effort.
https://www.zbrainsoft.com
Hi,
I have a problem in excel. The sheet attached herewith.
TABLE CONFIG 2/6
A B C D E F G H
1 WEIGHT1 43,599 WEIGH2 62500 WEIGHT3 77000 WEIGHT4 66,500
2 DEDUCTION1 15,000 DEDUCTION1 15,000 TEMP 0 DEDUCTION2 11,005
3 RESULT 58,599 RESULT-1 77,500 RESULT-2 77,000 RESULT-3 77,505
4 RESULT SUBSTRACT 0 0 0
5 REQUIRED VALUE 77,500 77,000 77,505
Note: 1- RESULT (58599) IS TO BE DEDUCTION EITHER FROM D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHEVER IS MOST
LEAST CELL AMONG RESULT-1 OR RESULT-2 OR RESULT 3.
2-HENCE, RESULT VALUE $B$3 IS TO BE PRESENTED ON CELL EITHER D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHER IS
MOST LEAST VALUE
3-FORMULA =IF(E8<H8,$B$9,IF(E8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<E8,$B$9,IF(J8<H8,$B$9))))))
CREATED ON CELL D4,F4 & H4 DID NOT WORK.
PLS FOR YOUR HELP.
THANK YOU
@R
Why not ask the question in the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
You can attach a file there