Online Retirement Planning Calculator
Suggestions for the Best Available

Everyone wants to find the best online retirement planning calculator or retirement income calculator. That could be a difficult choice because there are so many elements involved in the circumstances for each person.

I have examined a number of online retirement planning calculators during the period leading up to my retirement and researched many more since then. Numerous calculators are available, but many may not answer the question that you are interested in.

You should also recognize that many calculators are placed on the internet just to try to draw traffic for the possibility of making a sale of their product. So be aware and search for those sites that are trying to give its visitors valuable information, as they are the ones that usually provide the best tools.

You have heard the saying before – “You get what you pay for.” That holds true regarding any retirement calculator. Your payment is your time. If you spend more time putting data and details into a form for the calculation, you are more likely to get more accurate results from the provider.

There seems to be two major categories of calculators:

• Retirement Planning Calculator
Generally, this type is used when the person has not yet reached retirement. It allows one to run cases, altering many variables, to determine how much money that one would have at retirement and a general estimate as to how long it will last.
• Retirement Income Calculator
This type calculator will generally provide an estimate of how much monthly income that your retirement savings will provide during retirement.

• What impact does social security have on my retirement?
• How much would I save under a 401 (k) plan?
• What is the impact if I saved under a 401(k) plan or spent that amount?
• How do retirement contributions affect my paycheck?
• Is 401(k) or traditional IRA better?
• What if I have a Roth IRA?
• What is the impact of a traditional IRA calculation?

So here are my recommendations:

Best:

1. FIRECalc: A different kind of retirement calculator
2. Wallet Pop*
3. T. Rowe Price
* Motley Fool Retirement Calculator is exactly the same.

1. New Retirement
2. Fidelity Investments
3. ESPlannerBasic
4. CNN Money Retirement Planner

It uses many variables to address you own unique circumstance and it does not use averages. It performs calculations for each year since 1871 to show you what would have happened to your portfolio had you retired on that date. It identifies when, and if, your money would have run out at the end of your 30 year (or whatever period you wish to use) retirement period for each year starting point since 1871.

Input tables are available for Income, Spending, Not Retired Yet, Spending Models, Your Portfolio, Portfolio Changes, Investigate.

FIRECalc is the best online retirement planning calculator that I have seen.

Wallet Pop

It provides numerous data input fields for the user which provides more accurate results than using averages or general assumptions. It also identifies 15 questions that a person may want to ask about their retirement and provides a calculator for each of those 15 questions.

This site also provides articles regarding how to plan for retirement, other savings calculators to help you determine how to get out of debt faster. Their blog on retirement provides some interesting comments.

T. Rowe Price Retirement Calculator

This online retirement planning calculator runs around 1,000 market simulations under a monte carlo analysis to help you figure if your retirement portfolio will stand up under various market conditions. You can determine how much you may have available to you for your expenses each month. It determines the chances of your portfolio lasting throughout your retirement. Should you have a shortfall, it provides you with options to make the difference

Since there are several tables which need to be filled in for this calculator, its answers tend to more accurate that the short table form for other sites. So you will spend 10 minutes or so for input. That’s a good thing.

It provides for tax-deferred and non-deferred savings as well as detailed worksheets underlying several of the input fields. It has been considered a valuable calculator for a number of years.

Consider the Social Security Retirement Calculator

Of course, one thing that we must all do is to visit the Social Security Retirement Calculator at its site to determine the benefits that you may receive from Social Security.

It provides a high level view of your benefits, but you can download a more detailed approach to the calculation by using their Detailed Calculator.

In addition to the Good Calculators identified above, I am providing a list of other calculators that you may want to review.

• Analyzenow.com
• Retirement Calculator – AARP Bulletin Today
• Choose to Save.org
• 401(k) Retirement Plan Calculator
• Online Monte Carlo Retirement Planner
• Retirement Planner – MSN Money
• Bloomberg Financial Tools
• New Retirement
• U.S. Department of Labor
• Retirement Calculator.com