Planning for retirement and estate planning is complicated enough. But it appears that whenever you go to a bank or financial planning company’s website, they’re offering some kind of new and simple retirement calculator.
The idea is to be as precise as possible when helping you estimate the size of your nest egg, but so many are getting lost in the numbers.
And yet, despite their increasing sophistication, they’re still producing inaccurate results and diverging responses. One site will give you one piece of advice while another will tell you something completely different.
One site might allow for variances in state income tax rates while another will account for inflation. One site could ask you to list every asset you have, while another just wants the basics.
The problem is if you start depending on a single Internet retirement calculator or you fail to understand the end result – you could jeopardize your entire retirement.
Underestimating how much you need to save could leave you with a retirement shortfall, while overestimating can cut into your money now – meaning you have to sacrifice expenses like college tuition or extra payments on your mortgage.
However, there is a way to get the most out of simple retirement calculator tools. To learn how, keep reading.
Use More Than One
Don’t just depend on a single online retirement calculator to base your entire retirement future on. Instead, try several and pay close attention to which ones ask questions that are more pertinent to your current financial situation.
Combine the Results
You also have to look at how each of these calculators evaluates your results and then merge all that diverging advice. For example, Morningstar, a company that advises 401(k) plans, estimates that people need about 70% of their pretax and preretirement income. Meanwhile Fidelity’s online tool suggests you need about 85% of that income. That’s a major difference and can result in two vastly different recommendations for savings.
You Want Features, Just Not a Laundry List
Being able to customize a retirement calculator to your exact financial and familial situation is great. However, with that personalization and customization comes complications and a loss of simplicity. The calculator at choosetosave.org is powered by the Employee Benefits Research Institute.
It lets you easily customize your individual parameters, but is still fast, easy to use and simple to understand.
Consult With a Professional
Yes, a financial advisor will charge you fees and commissions, but if you’re having doubts they can be your best bet. Most people wouldn’t leave the fate of a mysterious illness in the hands of WebMD (as helpful as it is), so why would you leave the fate of your entire retirement plans in the hands of a simple retirement calculator?