Optimal Retirement Planner Review - Another Retirement Income Calculator

by Carola
(New Jersey)

Because of the Cons mentioned below, this Optimal Retirement Planner is not practical for my needs as a retirement income calculator. It seems that all retirement planning calculators seem to miss at least one or more factors that would come into play while planning. Here are my thoughts.



Pros:

• Entering figures was considered easy because the input page is set for entry in thousands (ie: enter 90.5 if you have $90,500).


• The data was saved automatically and did not have to be re-entered when I came back several days later.


• It has separate fields for tax-deferred and Roth accounts.


• It considers the effects of taxes and inflation on your bottom line, including if the tax cut law will be repealed or not.


• It considers investment returns and other sources of income, even reverse mortgages.


• The calculator accounts for money you intend to leave to heirs.

Cons:

• The calculator made an assumption about my spending which was inflated by 73%. That obviously makes a huge difference in virtual versus real results.


• The summary listed my Tax deferred account balance once on only one of the reports it generated, then it mysteriously turned to zero and stays at that level. This gives erroneous withdrawal figures and ages.


• Although the calculator considers annual savings and investments, the summary only accounted for the addition of 13% of those amounts annually without an explanation. The reason could not be my tax bracket because it is simply not that high.


• It assumes I'll be withdrawing from my Roth (because the other calculations are so misinterpreted. However, unless there is a catastrophic event, my Roth accounts will most likely remain untouched.


• In every report, the numbers seemed to be wrong and made no sense.

Although this calculator has enough "Pros", that's not enough to save it from the totally erroneous reports it generated (and I did it three times). I give it a “2” (only because FireCalc was already given the “1”).




Don’s Reply: Thank you for your views on the Optimal Retirement Planner (ORP). This is one of the more recent calculators that are available online. Your listing the pros and cons does helps us all get a clear view of your perspective. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.