Best Free Retirement Planning Tools

Other Online Retirement Calculators

There are literally thousands of retirement calculators available online. The calculators described above should cover most DIY retirement planning needs. But here are few more to check out if youre looking for other options:

• Dinkytowns Retirement Shortfall Calculator: As the name suggests, this calculator helps you determine if youll have a shortfall in retirement.
• Bloombergs Retirement Plan: One of the simplest calculators we cover, Bloombergs tool is ideal for those looking for a quick analysis.
• Nationwides RetirAbility Check: Yes, the car insurance company covers retirement, too. Actually, it has a wealth of information and tools to help you plan for your golden years. Its retirement planner is very comprehensive.

Learn More:Preparing for Retirement Late in the Game

We all know how important proper planning is to the retirement saving process. Being able to determine how much youll likely need in retirement is key to ensuring that you dont outlive your savings. This process is even more important if you intend to retire early.

The tools mentioned above are great places to start when trying to decide how much you should have set aside for your future. Play around with a few of them and find one that you like. Then, be sure to check back regularly, especially if you make changes to your financial plan, if your net worth is impacted, or if your retirement needs change.

Retirement Calculator Tips For Best Results

A retirement calculator is a valuable tool when used properly, but can dangerously mislead you when used improperly.

The best retirement calculators allow you to model your financial plan by varying input assumptions and then projecting those assumptions into the future. You can include projected income sources, growth of retirement savings, as well as model the sale of substantial assets such as a business or real estate to see how it affects savings growth and income over time.

In other words, retirement calculators make the math of long-term financial modelling easy. That is their redeeming feature. You can put real numbers behind your future plans to decide both how much money you need to retire and if you are saving enough to reach the goal.

Without a retirement calculator the math would be too complicated for all but the most dedicated spreadsheet junkies.

Betterment Retirement Saving Calculator

Betterment has a retirement savings calculator that works similar to the one offered by Personal Capital.

Youll provide basic information about your retirement plans, then sync your various financial accounts within the Betterment platform, providing access to your entire financial life in one place.

Betterment will project your retirement income, analyze your non-Betterment accounts, and provide a plan to help you reach your goal. Youll then be able to track your progress to see how close you are to reaching your retirement goal.

And since Betterment is a robo-advisor, youll be able to have some of your retirement savings professionally managed by the service. With a low advisory fee of just 0.25% per year, you can have $100,000 fully managed for just $250. That will include portfolio creation based on your long-term goals security selection, periodic rebalancing, and dividend reinvesting.

All you need to do is fund your retirement account and Betterment will take care of all the investment management for you.

You May Like: How Can I Retire Early And Get Health Insurance

Best Retirement Calculator Practices Iteration Vs Set

There is a reliable solution to planning for retirement. It just doesn’t follow the conventional wisdom.

If you want to apply the conventional model for retirement planning you must create a range of reasonable estimates for each assumption and then build a confidence interval for your retirement number.

In other words, group the pessimistic assumptions together to create your highest estimate for retirement savings. Then group your most optimistic assumptions together to create a low-ball estimate for how much money you need to retire. Reality will probably be somewhere in between.

Once this is complete don’t just set it and forget it. Instead, repeat the process of estimating your retirement needs by improving your estimates based on what has actually occurred since your last calculation. Over time you will correct and adjust your way to an accurate retirement number like a rocket heading to its target.

Additionally, if you would like to learn two other models for estimating your retirement savings needs then make sure to see It fully covers all the issues discussed here while providing actionable solutions and ranges for assumption estimates, and it explains two alternative models for retirement planning that are simpler, more accurate, and more reliable than the conventional wisdom.

It is the complete solution for how to use retirement calculators correctly and estimate how much money you need to retire.

Personal Capital Online Retirement Planner

Personal Capital is a diverse financial platform offering everything from free personal financial tools to comprehensive wealth management.

If you choose and if you have the portfolio they can provide both investment management and financial advice for a single low annual fee. The service will naturally include formal retirement planning.

But even if you dont have the minimum required initial investment, or if you dont choose to participate in their wealth management program, you can still take advantage of the retirement planner. Its a component of their free financial tools, and open to anyone.

Youll start by linking your various financial accounts to the Personal Capital Dashboard. That includes savings, investments, retirement accounts, loans and credit cards. The purpose of including your financial accounts is to enable a holistic view of your entire financial life.

With all your financial accounts assembled in one place, the Personal Capital Retirement Planner enables you to run different scenarios, such as evaluating various retirement dates or annual retirement savings contribution amounts.

It also enables you to build changes to your financial situation into your retirement plan. For example, you can factor in additional income sources, like Social Security and pensions. But you can also change the impact of major expenses on your retirement plan. Those include events like saving for your childrens college educations.

You May Like: New York State Police And Fire Retirement System

T Rowe Price Retirement Income Calculator

The T. Rowe Price calculator offers a straightforward and simple retirement planning tool. It works whether youre early in the retirement savings mode, or already retired.

Youll have options for entering the information youd expect, such as your age and how much youve already saved and invested toward retirement.

Youll get to results fairly quickly and the tool runs a Monte Carlo analysis. It shows out of 1000 different scenarios how many results in successes and failures .

They make it easy to play with the limited information you entered, but it is not a lot of fields. They use sliders to make it easy to change the information available.

What to Expect

The system runs heavily on assumptions.

If you dont like what you see in the summary, you can adjust your numbers without backtracking to the beginning.

You can change details, such as your monthly retirement savings contributions and when you want to retire. You get instant, updated results based on those changes.

Youll see how much you will likely have at retirement, based on your current course, and how much T. Rowe Price thinks you will need. Then youll have a few options for correcting any shortfall, with more information on each to help you choose which is the right path for you.

Pros:

• Designed to sell you T. Rowe Price investment services

Why Is It Called The Complete Retirement Planner

TCRP is a unique financial planning tool that incorporates technical and educational features that simply won’t be found elsewhere. Interview style questions, with explanatory notes, easily guide you through the set-up, providing an unparalleled ease of use. Clear educational notes on complex topics help to inform you. Flexibility in entering variable income, expenses, investment returns, savings, and one time events allows for individual needs. Critical variables that are often ignored by other planning tools, but have a big impact on results, are accounted for . A high level of clarity and detail in the results provides transparency into how it all works from start to finish, making it truly “complete”.

These are the features and capabilities that set TCRP apart from all other financial planning tools: Separate entries, if married,for: multiple sources of annual income , non-retirement cash and investment balances and expected interest/return rates for before and after retirement, retirement savings balances/contributions/annual return rates, HSA balances and contributions, retirement ages, and Social Security claiming ages. Being able to enter this information by spouse provides a great deal of flexibility andis essential for accuracy!

Help with estimating health care costs in retirement, with those costs automatically adjusting at a yearly inflation rate unique to health care.. No other planning tool does this, and it has a huge effect on results.

Don’t Miss: Indiana State Retired Teachers Association

Financial Mentor Ultimate Retirement Calculator

Todd Tresidders real-world experience helped him develop his Ultimate Retirement Calculator. Each input area brings up a brief explanation of what it is and what to enter.

The calculator requires a good amount of information on your part. It is not as extensive as the other calculators. A simple average-return calculation forms the analysis. It and does not take outside investment factors into consideration.

What to Expect

You will need to input a lot of data but the form walks you through it with comprehendible explanations. All the information wont bog you down.

The interface is easy to scroll through and adjust data as needed.

You will need to know any one-time, and monthly incomes as well as post-retirement income.

Your results will show you what you need to save. It will also tell you your savings at retirement as well as any surplus you might have.

Then it breaks down your investments and savings by year into a spreadsheet.

Pros:

• Does not show the probability of failure
• Retirement age must be higher than current age

Retirement Calculator: How We Got Here

Our free calculator predicts your retirement nest egg, and then estimates how it would stretch over your retirement in todays dollars, taking inflation into account. Our default assumptions include:

• A 3% inflation rate.

• Salary increases of 2% per year.

• A 5% rate of return in retirement .

Enter your age, income, current savings and monthly savings rate to see how you’re doing. If you wish, you can enter more details in the Optional settings, such as your expected rate of return before retirement and what you expect from Social Security . You can also fine-tune your retirement spending level, retirement age and more.

Also Check: Mobile Home Retirement Communities In Arizona

Get Started With An Easy Retirement Template

You can build your own retirement planner, but its faster and easier to get started with a free template. So here are seven of the best free retirement spreadsheet templates.

These spreadsheets can even help you find the best age to retire. For example, you might want to plan for early retirement, or a hybrid scenario where you keep working part-time or otherwise choose to delay your social security benefits.

Using This Retirement Calculator

• First, enter your current age, income, savings balance and how much you save toward retirement each month. Thats enough to get a snapshot of where you stand. The calculator assumes increases in salary and inflation.

• Want to customize your results? Expanding the Optional settings lets you add what you expect to receive from Social Security, adjust your spending level in retirement, change your expected retirement age and more.

• Hover over or tap on the color bars in your results panel to get further insight into where you stand.

• You can adjust your inputs to see how various actions, like saving more or planning to retire later, might affect your retirement picture.

You May Like: How Much Do You Need A Year To Retire

How Much Money Do You Need To Retire

A common guideline is that you should aim to replace 70% of your annual pre-retirement income. This is what the calculator uses as a default. You can replace your pre-retirement income using a combination of savings, investments, Social Security and any other income sources . The Social Security Administration website has a number of calculators to help you estimate your benefits.

It’s important to consider how your expenses will change in retirement. Some, like health care and travel, are likely to increase. But many recurring expenditures could go down: You no longer need to dedicate a portion of your income to saving for retirement. You may have paid off your mortgage and other loans. And your taxes are likely to be lower payroll taxes, which are taken out of each paycheck, will be eliminated completely.

Be sure to adjust based on your retirement plans. If you know you wont have a mortgage, for instance, maybe you plan to replace only 60%. If you want to travel every year, you might aim to replace 100% or even 110% of pre-retirement income.

The Best Couponing Apps

Ibotta, Groupon, Coupon Calendar are all great couponing apps that allow you to save money by using coupons that are placed in the apps as a way to access better deals when purchasing everyday items. The key to these couponing applications is to remain disciplined when making purchases and to not get sucked into spending more. Trust me, it sounds a lot easier than it is for most people.Remember, the main goal here is strictly to look for savings on items you need to purchase with, or without, the coupons.

Recommended Reading: Retirement Golf Communities In Scottsdale Az

Schwab Retirement Savings Calculator Review

With the Schwab Retirement Savings Calculator, you input income sources such as Social Security and pensions, as well as asset values, and it projects the likelihood that your plan is sustainable through life expectancy and provides suggestions to make your plan sustainable.

Overall Score: OK, scoring 2 out of 3

Best Retirement Planning Tools

Lissa Poirot|

Modified date: Nov. 21, 2021

When you want to build a house, you need a number of tools to bring your dream home to life. When you want to build your retirement fund, you also need tools to get you to the end you envision.

As with practically anything needed these days, many of the best tools to get your financial house in order can be found online through a host of platforms. The platforms aim to make it easier for you to understand retirement planning, learn how to invest to make your money grow, and someday retire in style. These tools may work in different ways but they all will help you build your retirement fund.

Whats Ahead:

Read Also: How Does State Retirement Work

Maxifi Basic Retirement Calculator Review

MaxiFi, formerly the free ESPlanner Basic, is the best retirement calculator we could find. Why? It does things none of the other retirement calculators do, and it ranks high on our retirement calculator scorecard in all three categories of accuracy, usability, and education.You input income sources such as Social Security and pensions , as well as savings and investment values, and it projects how much money you will need to save from now throughout retirement to keep your discretionary spending after retirement at the target you set.

Overall Score: Excellent, scoring 3 out of 3

What Rate Of Return Should You Use For Retirement Planning

Your expected rate of return should be based on your portfolio. If your portfolio consists of index funds, then you can look at historical annualized returns to get a sense of what you can expect. If you have a fixed-income portfolio, then that’s even easier because you know exactly what you’re expected to receive from those investments.

Recommended Reading: How Much Is It To Retire

Final Thoughts On Retirement Apps

Its impossible to say which app is the best for retirement tracking and planning because each offers a unique focus designed for a specific user. If you need help with budgeting and finding money to put away, Mint might be the best choice for you. If you are just a few years away from retirement, the Nest Egg Calculator will give you the peace of mind that comes with knowing youve been saving correctly. Watch a few YouTube app tutorials to get a more intimate look at the functionality of an app before you make a commitment.

Connecting To A Financial Advisor

What makes some of these tools especially useful is that they can connect you to people who can help you plan. This is especially helpful when you are starting out and unsure of the best avenue to take and are nervous about making the wrong choices and wasting your money.

The tools on this list were chosen in part for the wealth of expertise used to build them. When you input your information, youre getting more than a calculation. Youll enjoy the benefits of data collected by financial experts.

Don’t Miss: Tricare Dental Program For Retirees Ending

Find A Retirement Calculator That Reflects Your Situation

Not all retirement calculators are created equal. Here Ill review six free, online retirement calculators and compile notes on my impressions, likes, and dislikes.

A few things to understand before you get started first, there are a lot of retirement income calculators out there some good, others not so good. To resolve any particularities of one calculator, I recommend using a couple. This can help to provide a more accurate understanding of your retirement saving in the long run.

Similarly, finding a retirement calculator that fits your exact situation can be a daunting task, so choose a few. It would be hard if not impossible to find one, best retirement calculator that would work for everyones situation. Can the calculator compute for inflation or pay raises, or even automatic increases? The assumptions that some retirement planning calculators algorithms make about us can produce inaccurate projections. For example, many calculators assume an ongoing 8% compounding return even though you may be a more conservative investor and can more realistically expect a lower return. You are the best judge of your investing style and tolerance for risk, therefore it is critically important to be honest with yourself when selecting an achievable return assumption. Other assumptions about spending needs in retirement can equally throw off the estimation.