Retirement Calculator

Contents:

Instructions
Retirement Calculator

Instructions

Use our Retirement Calculator to help you determine the amount of money to save each year in order to achieve your financial goals. The Retirement Calculator will compute the annual savings required in order to reach a specified future dollar amount of savings.

Most people's retirement income comes from three sources:

Your pensions
Social Security payments
Your personal savings

This Retirement Calculator will help you get a handle on the third part of your retirement income, your personal savings.

Click the Submit button.


Your Current Age:		years
Your Current Retirement Savings:		dollars

Desired Income at Retirement:		dollars per year
	Use current dollars for this amount. The calculator will automatically adjust for inflation, and will give you the results in current dollars. Some retirement guides say you only need to have 70% of your pre-retirement income to have a comfortable retirement. However, if you plan to travel or have other significant expenses, you may want to enter your current income here.

Age at Retirement:		years
	Please see our Retirement Age Chart for assistance with this question.

For how many years after you retire should the savings last?		years
	Please see our Life Expectancy Chart for assistance with this question. Be optimistic about your life expectancy; You don't want to run out of savings during your retirement.

Investment Returns before Retirement:		percent per year
Investment Returns after Retirement:		percent per year
	These historical investment returns may be used for planning purposes, but do not necessarily reflect future investment returns. The information is based on the returns of the S&P 500 stock index and investment grade bonds. 80% Stocks, 20% Bonds: 10.4% average annual return 60% Stocks, 40% Bonds: 9.4% average annual return 40% Stocks, 60% Bonds: 8.3% average annual return 20% Stocks, 80% Bonds: 7.1% average annual return Please remember that these are average annual returns. In any give year returns have varied considerably, but over a long term investment program average returns may approach these historic returns.

Inflation Rate:		percent per year
	According to Money magazine, inflation has averaged 3.2 percent since 1950. Most experts advise using a higher figure, perhaps 4 percent, for financial planning purposes.

The Retirement Calculator assumes that amounts are invested at the beginning of each year and that income is earned and compounded annually.