Not to preach or sound like some ol' fart, but let me tell you, from the perspective of someone who has reached their 60s, retirement time comes much faster than you would think is even possible.
"More than 40% of Americans are at risk of going broke in retirement — and that’s the good news..."
If workers understood how fast retirement creeps up, do you think they would allow themselves to get in such a dire circumstance?
Pass mouse over bars or points for details. Click an item in the legend to remove.
* According to information you entered, your money will run out before you reach your life expectancy.
Remember, enter only annualized values.
As described below, the above calculator has the ability to solve for multiple unknowns and it will answer any of your common retirement questions. On the other hand, the below 3 calculators take up less screen space and they may be more appropriate for smaller computing devices. They are also designed to answer one question directly and therefore require less study to use. You might want to check them out as well.
The above calculator takes into account your current retirement savings plus additional contributions from your income as well as (optional) projected wage gains and evaluates your goals. It then charts your post retirement income to see if you are on track to meet those goals.
"ROI during retirement" rate goes into effect the day the last retirement contribution is made rather than on the day of the first income withdrawal. This is, a slightly more conservative approach if the after retirement rate is lower than the before retirment rate. It is a less conservative approch if the rates are reversed.
Related: Use this Inflation Calculator to help you determine an appropriate "Annual Inflation Rate" for you. It considers historical and future inflation.
There are 5 optional inputs. Any or all can be left at 0.
Retirement planning involves many variables. As with other financial calculators on this site, this retirement planning calculator can solve for multiple unknowns. Below are questions that can be answered based on your own assumptions using values you provide.
Set "Percent of income invested" to "0.0%"
Set "Your age at retirement?" to "0"
If calculated age equals your current age, then you have enough to retire now.
What will my retirement income be?
Set "Desired retirement income" to "0"
Set "Your life expectancy" to "0"
Click on the calculator's "Help" button for more details about each input.
Generally, when someone retires, their investments become more conservative. More conservative investments usually have a lower rate of return, yield or interest rate. This is why the calculator gives the user the option for two rates of return — one for the pre retirement investment and one for after retirement. The rate change date is on the date the last contribution is made. Click the schedule button for details.
When it comes to the amount you are contributing toward your retirement, some users many not care to think in terms of percent of income invested. Rather some may rather think in terms of an absolute amount they plan to contribute. If that's the case, set "percent of income invested" to 100% and enter for "annual income" the amount you plan to invest. Naturally the "annual income increase" feature will also work correctly if you select this approach.
If you want to know at what age you can retire given your expected savings plan and income desired, this calculator will tell you as noted above. In order to make this calculation, we have to know how long you want your retirement income to last. But this calculator does not ask you that question. So how do we know this? Behind the scenes, the calculator has a default retirement age. That age is 66. When you enter your life expectancy the calculator calculates the number of years you want your savings to last from the default date. If you want your retirement income from investments to last 20 years (21 withdrawals), you therefore enter 86 for "your life expectancy". Or if you want it to last 25 years, you enter 91 and 0 (zero) for "Your age at retirement". Notice after the calculation, your retirement age will be known, but also your life expectancy will be updated so that the difference between the two will equal the number of years you want the funds to last.
A note about "Desired retirement income": When users are thinking about retirement and the income they want, they normally think about the total income, not the individual components of the income. Therefore, desired income is the total annual income you want when you retire. If you enter income from other sources, such as projected Social Security or pensions, that income will be deducted from the desired income when making the investment calculations. Or stated another way, both the chart and the schedule consider only your investment plan and income before income from other sources. If you want to reach a particular income aside from what may come from other sources, just leave other sources set to zero.
Click on the below plans and the calculator's data will change and the chart will be updated. The point is to show three slightly different sets of inputs and how generally small changes can have a significant impact on the results.
Retirement Plan 1 — even starting at age 35 and saving 5% of income with a 3% increase every year, the savings plan will not allow the user to have a comfortable retirement for their life expectancy. Notice at retirement (age 65), the retirement funds immediately start to deplete as indicated by the red bars.
Retirement Plan 2 — if the user follows this plan, the retirement funds immediately start to deplete, but they will not run out. There was one change made to this plan when compared to plan one. The user settled for 12.5% less retirement income.
Place your mouse over a bar for details about the data at any age. Notice the yellow line shows the retirement savings and the blue line shows the retirement income, and if you put your mouse on a point, you'll see the specifics. The retirement calculator is one of the more important financial calculators on this site. Feel free to let me know how it can be made better.
Though many, if not all, of the inputs will be self-explanatory at a basic level, we suggest that you review the below information. There are various details which we point out that are important to understand.
Your current age — or the age you plan to start saving/investing.
Your life expectancy — expressed as an age. Your retirement funds have to last for your life expectancy minus your retirement age plus one (to fund your last year of retirement). Currently, a male living in the US who is 20 years old has a life expectancy of 77 years and a female can expect to live to be 81 years. Of course, feel free to change these numbers as you see fit. Or you may wish to use the US Social Security Administration's life expectancy table.
Annual income — expected annual income at the time you start saving for retirement. If you have already started investing then enter your current income.
Annual income increase — assumes your income will go up over the years. Enter the annual average increase that you expect. If you want to allow for inflation, then enter an amount LESS the average annual rate of inflation that you expect. For example, if you expect to get a 3% raise a year and you expect inflation to average 2% a year, then enter 1% since 2% is going to be eaten up by the impact of inflation.
Percent of income invested — enter the percent of income that you plan to save for your retirement fund. Generally speaking, the older you are, the higher the percentage will have to be for you to reach your retirement income goal.
Current retirement savings — if you have already started saving, enter the total amount in your retirement account.
ROI for retirement savings — (return on investment) your expected, annualized average return on your investments. If you were to put your money in a standard saving account (not necessarily a good idea), then this would be the annual interest rate paid on the account.
Your age at retirement — the age you want to retire.
ROI during retirement — your rate of return on your investments after you retire. You could use the same percentage as you use for "ROI for retirement savings" however, normally after one retires they invest their money in assets that are more conservative and that generates a lower rate of return.
Annual inflation rate — if you want to increase your retirement income, then enter an estimated inflation rate. Your income will increase by this amount.
Desired retirement income — what is the total annual income you expect to need on the day you retire including the income from other sources.
Expected income from gov't — if you expect social security income or a government pension enter the annual amount. This amount plus any income from other sources will be deducted from "annual income required" to calculate the amount of income retirement your savings will have to generate.
Other annual income — if you expect income from other sources besides your retirement saving and government social security or pensions enter the annual amount. For example, if you expect a pension from an employer, enter the annual pension amount. This amount and social security will be deducted from "annual income required" to calculate the amount of income your retirement fund will have to support.
Your calculators are great. Very helpful.
Using the Retirement Calculator: Doing scenarios where you would retire early, and the field ‘income from other sources’. I will get government income, but not at the onset of the early retirement age I am using. Does the calculator account for this?
All retirement income is assumed to commence in the retirement year. I’ll have to give it some thought as to how that might be accomplished. The difficulty would be calculating an unknown retirement income when part of the total income starts at a different time.
Your calculators are most helpful.
Suggestion: a field or two that would allow for changes in circumstances over the course of retirement. i.e. receive and inheritance at age 70 or decrease annual income at age 75.
Hi Laurie, thank you for taking the time to make a suggestion. Perhaps I’ll be able to update this calculator in the first half of 2017. Currently I have a number of enhancements I want to implement on this site. One problem with this particular calculator though, is it is not particularly popular (why, I’m not sure) and it probably best to enhance calculators that get more use.
I put in 50K for desired annual retirement income and only 27K from govt source. Your schedule took 23K the first year of my retirement from savings but not an of the following years. It should deduct every year until life expectancy of age 95. age is 71 now.
Hi Mary, I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t duplicate the problem. When I run the schedule, the calculator deducts 23,000 per year for each year of retirement, until the life expectancy age.
However, it would help if you tell me your other inputs. Because I now see that if current age is 71 and age at retirement is 71, then there is 1 year of withdrawal. Perhaps that is how you have it set? The reason for this, is because there is no pre retirement investment period and thus no accumulated savings to withdrawal the 23K from.
Also, what do you want to calculate? Perhaps there is a different calculator you should be using.
Very good calculator. After using your calculator I realized that inflation can really create havoc in your finances. $ 12,000 per annum requirement now calculates to $ 28,000 after 28 years if the inflation rate is 3%. Shocking for a layman.
Yes, it is surprising the cost of inflation. I think the next calculator that I add to this site will be an inflation calculator. I’ve been thinking about the design for a few months now.
The retirement calculator are not mobile friendly.
The schedule, unable to display fully.
Are there plans to make it mobile friendly?
Thanks for taking the time to report this. I’ll have to take a look. I can’t say that I was aware of a problem on mobile devices. Which device did you try it with? Behavior of mobile browsers vary. Also, did you try it while holding the phone in landscape / horizontal mode?
Thanks Karl for the fast response.
The layout is ok when I hold the phone horizontal mode. Thanks alot.
I am facing another issue.
I am using DIVI 2.0.2… I am using text module to add the shortcode.
However, after publishing the page. When I tried to edit the module, it will hang.
Thanks for letting me know about the layout. I’ll have to figure out how to have a little pop-up for some calculators when they need to be in landscape mode and the user has a handheld device in vertical mode.
I don’t know what DIVI is, but that shouldn’t matter I guess. Are you talking about installing one of my plugins? (This comment is not on a plugin page, so I’m not sure.) If that’s the case, it’s possible there is a conflict with the pop-up modal window where the user sets currency and date options. Does the page in question have a pop-up window or modal? A workaround, but not the best, is to disable the plugin, edit the page, then enable the plugin again. Not too bad of a solution if you don’t have to edit the page to frequently.
Hope I understood your point.
Is this calculator embeddable on a website? I don’t see this as a widget in WordPress. Only 3 others.
No, it isn’t. If the website is built with WordPress there are 3 individual retirement calculators that you can install. See under "plugins".
The retirement calculator is great! I see that we can download the chart to PDF. Is there anyway to download the chart WITH the inputs to a PDF?
It can be done, depending on your exact needs. This is how I would do it. Export the chart to PDF as you’ve already done. Then click on the "Schedule" button. At the top of the schedule are the inputs. If showing the inputs as part of the schedule meets your needs, then the schedule can be printed to PDF. If you are using Google Chrome, it will do this as a print option/destination. Just click on the print button in the upper left and select the PDF output.
If you are not using Chrome, then you’ll need to install on your computer (Windows?) a PDF print driver such as PrimoPDF and print to it. The driver is free.
I don’t use Mac, but if you do, I assume there are PDF print drivers for Mac as well.
Please let me know if this gets you to where you need to be.
Karl- Thank you for taking the time to clarify. I have used many different calculators throughout the years, including those from the sites of the most popular mutual fund companies. Yours does the best job I can find of illustrating the accumulation (goal based) and distribution (cash flow based) picture. It uses enough detail to be comprehensive but not too much that it overwhelms the user. Thanks again.
Thanks for posting the follow-up. I understand about integrating the inputs, schedule and charts in one easy to execute printed report. I’ll have to learn how to integrate the chart into the report.
I would like to embed these on my firm intranet for use with clients. How does that work?
I would need access to aprox 40 of the choices? are they $69 each?
Is this a one time fee? or annual?
How do I get my logos on there?
Is your firm’s intranet site written using WordPress? If so, please go here to the free WordPress plugin for the available calculators.
If you are asking about SolveIT!, that’s a software program just for Windows – the collection of calculators do not run on a website.
I’m working on the WP plugin intstall now… Will this plugin provide the entire “report” after the entries are made? If so, how would I configure the short-code (Branded) for that purpose?
This retirement calculator is not offered as a WordPress plugin.
I do have three retirement calculator plugins that are available. The links are here retirement calculator plugin.
The plugins are not limited in any way. If you follow the links on the above page, each plugin is installed on this site so potential users can test them.
Any plans to make this a WP Plugin?
Not this calculator, but there are 3 retirement WP plugins on this site. I assume you’ve seen those?
Would like to see the “income from gov’t” broken out so we can add more detail: Such as exactly when he and/or she will start SS or Gov. pension…. if we have these amounts from SS statements, then being able to plug these amounts into your calculator at different years will show the +/- of wealth and better draw down. eg: you may retire early at 64, but not take SS until 68… so I would like to reflect that start date for SS within your calculator at age 68. Thanks!
I think that’s a good idea. I hope to revisit this calculator in the first half of next year to add a couple of features. I’ll see about adding your idea. Currently, I’m thinking of adding the ability to add a single lump sum to the investment side as a "catch-up" to see what the impact will be.
If you are going to expand this and add a catch-up; you should also add a “one time withdrawal” also, maybe when I’m 70 I pull out $50K and gift it to the grandkids, that reduces my overall balance and changes all the future downstream numbers, would be good to see all this. Thanks!
Karl, My last comment… Sorry!
Your calculators are very good, and with your future ideas and our comment of ideas… the retirement calculator will be one of the better ones out here on the WEB. There are many calculators out there, many do not account for different interest rates before/after retirement, or inflation, or just lump in a SS/Pension payment based on the income you entered (which is wrong). Adding catch-up amounts or one time withdrawals are great real life aspects of life also. bankrate, calc, citi, chase, fidelity, etc… have yet to take any action to fix their poor calculations (or not complete inputs) to provide real life retirement results (I’ve talked to many of them), I find this disappointing and misleading. Believe me I’ve used many of these often and am still surprised at the incomplete outputs of information they produce (mostly just not accurate). Also your graph of outputs and print functions are good, not to overwhelming or page cluttered, good size, and just enough information to understand… your result calculations match my spread sheet checker for accuracy, I would not change too much on your outputs.
Hope you do improve your retirement calculator in the near future and continue to make it better with your plans. Thanks!
Hey, no problem! Thank you for your insights, Mark.
I agree with you on the enhancements. I think the operative phrase here is "near future." I’m the only one building this site and I’m also gainfully employed which does seem to cut into the hours I can devote to this project! Currently, I’m in the middle of making a site upgrade and I also have about 3 new calculators under development. Once they are released, I’ll look at enhancing a few calculators including this one.
Is the government income annual or monthly? The inputs should be clearly labeled. Social Security site gives a monthly amount. Otherwise! I love the calendars. Thanks.
I’m glad you basically like the calculator. Sorry that some things are not clear. Everything you enter should be an annualized amount.
I’m wondering if you missed this "Remember, enter only annualized values." on the calculator itself? If so, maybe I should make it a different color.
I love the calendars. When redoing the retirement calendar, can you add a feature for adding additional amount to investments? I save 15% and my job gives me 9%. I will continue to do that until retirement. However, after I pay off my house, I intend to invest the amount of my house payment, plus the additional I’l be paying to pay it off early monthly until I retire.
Hi Renae, sorry not to have replied before now. I got side tracked. While it’s true you can’t add an extra amount to the pre-retirement investment cash flow, you can it with this financial calculator. This calculator allows the user to change the cash flow amount on any date. You can change interest rates too. It is also possible to combine an investment cash flow followed by a withdrawal cash flow. It’s quite flexible, but it does take a bit of effort to learn how to use.
On the other hand, if you scroll down the page, there are 25 tutorials to get you started.
And I’m always happy to try to answer any questions you might have, and this time, I’ll try not to be so slow in doing so.