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We are all interested in free retirement planning tools and retirement calculators in particular, so I decided to provide a list of the ones I am aware. Having experienced some of the online calculators and those you can pickup on CD I personally decided to create my own spreadsheet but for those planning for the first time some of the online tools are very good. If you know of any other great tools please let me know. I will be happy to add them to this list. Links are below: Fidelity Investments: I have used this particular online calculator prior to developing my own. It is easy to use and will take 30 minutes or so to make a quick first cut at a plan. Of course it does end with suggestions for investment portfolios that is all Fidelity. It is pretty extensive but I found it useful for defining those things I needed to know before I had a workable plan. A couple of nice features are the ability to save the plan and come back later and the ability to just bypass information I didn’t have first time through and still get to the end. Of course I had to come back later but the plan was saved to make that possible. I didn’t have to start over each time. This is the best calculator I’m aware of. CNN Money has its own retirement calculator, which you can find here. I haven’t used this particular one and it does appear a little primitive but CNN Money is reputable. AARP has a rudimentary calculator on its site. I haven’t used this one but it too looks pretty basic. NewRetirement.com also has a free online calculator. This is an interesting site that has many articles to help you to understand various alternatives that you may want to research as you develop your plan. Social Security has some “what if” benefits calculators as an aid to determining benefits variations due to retirement age and future earnings. There are various retirement planning products being sold on CD but I have yet to see anything better than what you can get free online. P.S. the reason I ended up inventing my own calculator was because I realized that I needed to make a bottom up plan revolving around my monthly and annual needs before more global planning made any sense. Most calculators ask the question “how much money do you need in retirement?”. I could only answer that question by developing a budget first and then plugging those numbers into a broader plan. It is much easier for me to play “what if” scenarios now that I have a clear vision of my detailed needs. Believe me, when it comes to retirement income planning the devils in the details.
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[…] A fellow blogger wrote a fantastic post today on “Calculator-Planning-Retirement”Here’s ONLY a quick extractWe are all interested in free retirement planning tools and retirement calculators in particular, so I decided to provide a list of the ones I am aware. Having experienced some of the online calculators and those you can pickup on CD I … […]