Early Retirement Calculator

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

If you look at the associated forum on that site, there is a two-message thread (OP and responder are one and the same) along the lines of:

"How much to I need to save for retirement?"

"You need to save $3mm to $4mm for retirement."

End of thread. I think I'm done serving as an alpha tester for this project.

[Moemg]

Most of the caculators will not let you enter in SS before your 62nd birthday .I 'm a widow so I got SS at 60 and then I am transfering to my SS at 66 so in order to get proper calculations I have to put in SS as if it's a pension and then put in the additonal amount ( the difference of the SS widow benefit and my benefit ) as SS payout at 66.

[myself]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo While I agree this calculator has many, many opportunities for improvement, I would disagree with your statement above. Although you may choose not to increase your withdrawal % for inflation each year, the 4% withdrawal rate does incorporate an annual inflation adjustment. See this thread in the "Best of..." area for more: http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ate-19234.html

Yes, there are dangers of not increase a little with inflation. However, even FIRECalc states that there's a 95% chance on withdrawal of $74,500k/yr with only $1,875,000 in retirement funds, which is just slightly less than 4% withdrawal rate. According to that calculator, it thinks to have a withdrawal of $75,000/yr, one would need $13M in retirement.
Granted, if one had that much, I would say there's a 100% chance (or better), that one could increase their spending by inflation every single year.

[vinnieg24]

omi, all these numbers being thrown around, slightly hard to follow being a newbie and all. does the calculator assume you have the same income each year?

[junopens]

Again - we appreciate all the feedback.
I still think that there is merit to showing that 75K today is 207K in 2042 as inflation awareness is too low with baby-boomers.

As stated - the idea was to start simple.

I view the Fire-calc to be a superior calculator for a serious retiree but too complex for first time users.

I value to concept of creating a plan - "what is my gap and how can I close it".

[Gumby]

Among other things --

No ability to input additional contributions prior to retirement

Starts Social Security immediately upon retirement, even though not eligible

No way to account for pension income in retirement

Uses a fixed portfolio return -- much too simplistic



I'll stick with Firecalc thanks.

[kumquat]

It seems to have a problem. I tell it I have $3M. It doesn't believe me.[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Moi/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg[/IMG]

[junopens]

You are right. The problem is not the amount. The problem is that the calculator has a bug when the input is for a person in retirement (it was optimized for planning, before retirement).
We will fix it and will let you know the new version.
Thanks for trying it.

[kumquat]

Frankly, you're wasting you time. The world doesn't need another one of these: DATAQUEST

[hellodeli1]

My main gripe with the calculator is that it doesn't factor in contributions investments leading up to retirement. It also appears to overstate the amount needed in retirement, but I didn't investigate it fully.

musings on personal finance

[putty]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kumquat Frankly, you're wasting you time. The world doesn't need another one of these: DATAQUEST

I actually disagree. As a software guy myself, even though it may be frustrating for you guys, this is an invaluable learning experience for the OP. Yes, he is revinventing the wheel, but he is putting a product out, people are finding errors and offering suggestions. Presumably he is going to go back to the drawing board and make his calculator even better.

Next time he will hopefully come up with a better development plan so he doesn't have to bring bad software to the users, but, hey, he's learning.

Keep working OP. You'll get it if you listen to the feedback.