You often hear us talk about our mission, which is guided by one core belief:
money matters because life matters more. Our goal is to provide you with the best tools possible to gain clarity and confidence with your money.
But what does that mission actually look like when you open your Tiller spreadsheet? Our mission isn’t just a slogan; it’s built directly into the features you use every day.
Here’s how our mission comes to life in your spreadsheet:
1. Your Time is for Living, Not for Data Entry Our brand promise is “Your Financial Life in a Spreadsheet, Automatically Updated Each Day”. The automatic daily feed of your transactions and balances is the engine behind our mission. By handling the tedious work of gathering your data, we give you back time to focus on what the numbers actually mean for your life.
2. Your Categories Should Reflect Your Life We offer uniquely flexible tools that accommodate your individual goals. Your spreadsheet is a judgment-free zone where you decide what matters. Instead of being forced into generic categories, you can create ones that reflect your personal values.
Instead of just “Dining,” you could have “Date Nights” and “Lunches with Friends.”
Instead of “Shopping,” maybe you use “Support Local Shops” or “Kids’ Extracurriculars.” This is how a simple spreadsheet becomes a tool for intentional spending.
3. Your Spreadsheet Grows With You Your financial life changes, and Tiller is built so you will never outgrow our solution. The Foundation Template is just the start. The Tiller Community Solutions gallery allows you to add templates for tracking net worth, paying off debt, managing expenses, and more as your needs evolve. Your Tiller spreadsheet is designed to be ultra-customizable to fit your exact preferences.
4. Your Data is Yours. Period. A huge part of financial confidence comes from trust. We work to earn the trust our customers place in Tiller. In a Tiller-powered spreadsheet, you maintain complete control and ownership of your financial information. Your data is private and secure, for your eyes only.
How does our mission show up in your spreadsheet?
We would love to hear how you’ve customized Tiller to better reflect your life and goals.
All 4 of these reasons are important to me and why I use Tiller. I love the automation and customization available to me. I have created a simple dashboard sheet with custom formulas that just shows me the information that is most relevant to me and it’s fantastic.
My dashboard tracks my retirement spending and expected portfolio income based on 4% SWR.
On the spending side I report my past 13 months spending (to be conservative). I’ve also taken rolling 13 month periods for the past 10 years of transaction data that I imported into Tiller to see how my average spending has changed over time. Looking at just the most recent trailing 13 months can be lumpy.
On income side I have my portfolio derated for taxes. While it’s easy to get balances for my accounts this doesn’t reflect post tax value. My 401k has a mix of pre-tax and Roth. And brokerage accounts need to be derated for capital gains.
After calculating the post tax portfolio balance I divide it by 25 and 300 to get expected annual and monthly income. I look at how this compares to my spending. It’s nice to see the spending number below expected portfolio income.
I also grab raw net worth for today, a week ago, a quarter ago, and a month ago so I can see how that’s trending with a quick glance. This includes illiquid real estate whose values I update monthly. It’s eye opening to see my post tax liquid portfolio value at half of my raw net worth.
Tiller is fantastic for making it easy to bring all of this data together and do custom reporting. If I built this in a proprietary online platform or app I’d be worried about the provider making changes and breaking what I’ve done. I know that is unlikely with Tiller since I have access to the raw data in my own Foundation spreadsheet.
Finally I added a section to show alerts for accounts that Tiller is having trouble connecting to. I need to figure out how to add the tentative ETA.
I love this example! I don’t suppose you would be willing to share some of this in a video testimonial? We are looking for some people willing to share their Tiller story.
