• Online calculators promise to tell you whether you have saved enough. Do they deliver?
• Retirement calculators have an impossible job. They use various imperfect mathematical techniques in an attempt to predict the distant future.

Best Retirement Calculator (2. See How Much You'll Need. One simple question Photo credit: . We may fantasize about international adventures or beachside escapes, but rarely do we lay the groundwork for realizing our retirement dreams financially. There are, after all, more immediate concerns: job, kids, mortgage payments, car payments—the list goes on. Amid this daily grind, it’s easy to put retirement savings on the back burner, especially when it’s 1.

Indeed, surveys have repeatedly shown that the average American retirement savings is too low and that significant numbers of Americans in their 3. Needless to say, the save- nothing approach is not recommended. At its best, retirement is a time when the stresses of years one through sixty- five (or so) fade, leaving room for relaxation, delectation and grandchildren.

If money is scarce, however, financial anxiety could crowd these pleasures out. Want to know how to retire comfortably? Start saving. On the other hand, just as it’s unwise to save nothing at all, it’s unrealistic to try and save every penny that isn’t already dedicated to paying bills or buying groceries.

For most retirees, there are other sources of retirement income besides savings, Social Security being chief among them. The common assumption is that some savings, in addition to Social Security and a less expensive lifestyle (no more kids in the house, no more commuting costs) will all add up to financial security in our sunset years. To put it another way: it’s common to assume that if we save in good faith, things will work themselves out. For some, that may turn out to be true, but such success stories are more a result of good luck than a sound retirement strategy. That phrase — sound retirement strategy — is where many of us lose interest. It is loaded with negative connotations: expensive investment advisors, large stacks of documents and complex spreadsheets, to name a few.

Retirement Planning Calculator. Use this version for a quick look at your retirement outlook. It’s best for those who don’t have a lot of different investments.

But a sound retirement savings plan doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be boiled down to one simple question: How much do I need to save to retire? By putting away a percentage of your income every month from now until you retire, you can do away with the financial anxieties far too many seniors find themselves facing. A retirement calculator can help. Living the good life: How much do I need to retire?

Photo credit: . Do you hope to travel? To Paris, or someplace a little cheaper? How often do you want to eat out? Go to the movies? Do you want to move closer to the beach?

The grandchildren? These questions may seem trivial now, but they can help give you an idea about the income you’ll need in the future. If you’re set on seeing the Eiffel tower, the Pyramids at Giza and the Taj Mahal, you’re going to need a sizeable nest egg to draw upon. On the other hand, if you expect to live a rather low- key lifestyle, with far fewer expenses than you currently have, you won’t need to save quite as much. The important thing is to be realistic.

Don’t shortchange your future self by assuming you can live off of canned tuna and scrambled eggs. While some costs will likely go down in retirement, others may go up. Specifically healthcare costs are likely to rise in retirement. So it’s best to have a cushion for unpredictable costs like that.

Plus, retirement is your reward for decades of hard work: treat yourself accordingly. Saving for retirement: Where are you now? Whether you plan to live lavishly or frugally, you’ll need to have a certain amount of money saved by the time you retire. Think of this figure as a mountain summit, reachable by several different paths. If you’ve done everything right so far, that summit is still in plain view; you’ve followed the most direct and least difficult path, and all you need to do is continue on in the same direction. If, however, your savings aren’t where they should be, it’s as if you’ve wandered in the wrong direction—you’ll need to recalibrate and start climbing in order to reach the summit. To determine your current financial coordinates, you need to answer three questions: How much have I saved thus far?

The answers to those questions will determine how much work you have to do to reach that mountaintop. If you’ve saved plenty and you’re still young, great—you’re well on your way. If you’ve saved nothing and your sixties are just around the corner, not so much. Let’s check out some examples using our retirement calculator to see how this works in reality. Starting early. Let’s begin with a best case scenario: you’re 2.

You live in a mid- sized city, let’s say Tulsa (Oklahoma!) where you earn $4. You currently have $5,0. Your employer has promised to match 1. After thinking it over, you decide that you would be comfortable living a lifestyle similar to your current one in retirement. Assuming a rate of return on your investments around 4%, you would have to save about $1. If you continue on your current path, however, you'll be over $2.

Getting an early start on retirement savings can make a big difference in the long run. By saving an extra $7. Smart. Asset’s retirement calculator. Ample funds. Let’s try another one. You’ve just turned 4.

Fortunately, you’ve been able to put away some solid savings over the years: you’ve got $2. IRA. You now live in Pittsburgh, where you earn $7. Now that you’re older and wiser, you’re a little bit more optimistic about your investments, and so you assume a 5% annual return. You also plan on living fairly modestly once you retire, and think your budget will be a bit trimmer than it is today.

Under this scenario, you’d only have to save about 7. This Pittsburgh resident is right on track for a happy retirement. Smart. Asset’s retirement calculator projects she’ll have a savings surplus if she stays on her current course. A Little Late. You’re 5.

All told, you’ve got $5. As a talent agent in Los Angeles, you’re self- employed and have never bothered to set up a retirement account. You make $1. 00,0. When you do retire, however, you’re going to live lavishly—smoked salmon for breakfast, choice cuts of steak for dinner.

Bad news: to pull all of that off, you’ll need to save $2,9. That's about 2. 0% of your monthly income. Compare that to the 5% per month you've been saving up until now. If you stay on that course, you'll have a savings shortfall of $6.

This Los Angeles couple put off the important retirement decisions for too long. Smart. Asset's retirement calculator projects a retirement shortfall of $6. ASAP. The Best Laid Plans. In the above scenarios, our hypothetical subjects kept their savings in one of a variety of retirement savings options, in either a savings account, a 4. IRA. There are many ways you can invest the money you set aside for retirement, depending on your goals.

The rate of return your money earns depends on the risk you are willing to take on, the success of your particular investment strategy and, to a certain extent, luck. For example, an economic downturn can hurt your investments, at least in the short run. So too can changes in the inflation rate, and other economic events. All of which is to say: the unexpected can happen, and often does.

The best you can do is to develop a solid plan based on the information you have now. Don't let retirement savings statistics get you down. A retirement calculator can help you see how you are doing so far and what you need to change to make your retirement goals.

By setting goals and meeting them, you give yourself the opportunity for a rich and rewarding retirement.

The Best Retirement Calculators - Can I Retire Yet? What’s so important about retirement calculators? Why are these tools of more than just technical interest?

Well, they’re important because either you, or a financial planner, will use the results from a retirement calculator to make one of the most crucial decisions of your life: Are you financially independent yet, or not? If you get this decision right, you can enjoy more of the freedom and fulfillment that everybody wants out of a complete human life.

But, if you get this decision wrong, you could run out of money for healthcare or other essentials in your old age, or you could waste years of your life doing unnecessary or unenjoyable work. That’s why retirement calculators are important. And it’s why the review I wrote of the three best free retirement calculators, and a follow- up comparison of five free retirement calculators, have been the most popular posts on this site. Thousands of people have read these articles and, I hope, been motivated to analyze and better understand their own retirement trajectories. A Curated List. But the universe of retirement planning tools has not stood still since I wrote those initial articles. And, I’ve continued to read, and experiment, and hear from readers.

So I’ve since cataloged dozens of additional retirement calculators — every general- purpose, publicly- available tool that I hear about. Altogether, I have a database of information on 5. Unfortunately, it just isn’t realistic for me to perform in- depth reviews on that many software programs. Yet retirement calculators are a core topic of this blog, and I know many people come here for guidance about them. Native Instruments Kontakt Gold For Sibelius Finlandia more.

So, how should I go about evaluating all of these options? Here is my solution: Rather than attempt to compare or validate so many calculators in- depth, I’m offering a “curated” list below of what I consider to be the best available calculators, along with key data to help you choose the right one(s) for your situation. My plan is to keep this list updated going forward. As the calculator landscape changes, I will continue to learn about new calculators.

Some older calculators may become obsolete. So programs will come and go, but the list below will always represent my current recommendations. So, how did I choose them? Here are my criteria: I favored general- purpose tools that take a set of financial inputs and model them over time — suitable for traditional pre- and post- retirement, or early- retirement scenarios. In general, I wanted to see established companies or well- known individuals who could support their tools, with ongoing development, and an established user base, if possible. I’ve run each of the programs below, in some form, and worked with many of them extensively. However, I did not attempt to verify results mathematically.

There are simply too many variables involved and too many judgment calls on the part of programmers for me to issue an opinion that a given calculator is “right” or “wrong.” Any calculator, in any given scenario, can be caught making some simplifying assumption about reality that somebody will argue is incorrect. I don’t want to play that game. But, do realize that, in an attempt to make retirement modeling “easy,” some calculators make assumptions that may not suit your situation. For example, a surprising number of calculators continue to have problems with early retirement or near- retirement scenarios.

Beware of calculators that require you to input a salary, or want to compute your expenses as some percent of your salary, or assume that Social Security must start at your “retirement” date, or that include built- in/undocumented assumptions for stock market returns, inflation, or tax rates. There are enough good ones listed below, that you can easily get a 2nd (or 3rd) opinion on just about any retirement- related financial question! And I’ll make it as easy as possible for you to choose a calculator appropriate to your needs. By fidelity we are referring to how well each calculator can potentially reproduce reality — the realism of its simulation.

In a nutshell, to do a better modeling job, a calculator will need to collect more data, and more accurate data, from you. So, “fidelity” is also a rough measure of increasing complexity: Low- Fidelity — these calculators will feature just a dozen input fields or less, and usually perform only a simple fixed rate/average return calculation. They feature ease of use, and generally will require less than 5 minutes of your time to produce answers. Medium- Fidelity — these calculators add additional fields, usually handling multiple accounts with different asset allocations, and arbitrary financial “events” such as irregular future income or expenses. Generally they might require 1.

High- Fidelity — these calculators will add even more input fields, the ability to compare scenarios, and often Social Security and tax calculations. Generally they will require at least 3. And they could easily require several hours to understand all the options, and collect and input all the data to take full advantage of their capabilities. But these calculators have the potential to be most accurate, assuming you take the time to enter good data, and assuming your guesses about the future hold true. Returns: Broadly speaking, there are three approaches to modeling stock market returns over time: Using an average return for each year is the simplest approach. However, unless you reduce that average return by some arbitrary amount, it does not take into account the impact of volatility on your portfolio, and will be overly optimistic. A Monte Carlo analysis, using an average return plus a standard deviation, takes volatility into account, but requires expertise (or trust) for choosing the necessary mathematical parameters.

And there are arguments that the artificial randomness introduced by a Monte Carlo simulation doesn’t mimic the real world accurately. Finally, a historical analysis uses actual market data on the performance of asset classes over the past century to model what would have happened to your portfolio over periods in the past. The issue with this approach is whether the future will be like the past or, even if it is, whether the current starting point of high market valuations leads predominantly into the realm of lower return possibilities. There are arguments, and recognized experts, for and against each way of modeling returns. Who’s right? My own preference is to gather as much information as possible, by using calculators that offer all three mechanisms, then compare the results, and draw my own conclusions.

Platform: The majority of modern retirement calculators run in your browser as web applications. If you want the slickest user experience, you’ll probably opt for one of these. However a few calculators run on your desktop or tablet, using Microsoft Excel, i. OS, or Windows. If you’d rather keep your financial data on your local computer, you might opt for one of these. Cost: Many retirement calculators are free, including good ones at each fidelity level. But a few calculators are offered in different fidelities at different price points. When there are multiple versions, I’ve included the range of costs in the table below.

In general: I’ve reviewed the highest- fidelity version available, it includes all the features of any lower versions, and the lower versions are also worthy of your consideration. Notes/Features: I’ve included brief notes on the features of each program, so you can get the flavor of its functionality. I’ve tried to standardize terms when possible: “Income replacement” means the calculator wants to estimate your expenses as a % of income (a negative if it precludes early- or post- retirement scenarios). If there is no link from a review date, then that is simply the last date that I updated information on the calculator in this table.

Choosing a Calculator. Below is my list of the best calculators, for your consideration.