"Flexible Retirement Planner" website

[ZMAN]

I was trying out the "Flexible Retirement Calculator" at
Flexible Retirement Planner

It has some interesting features and read outs. I particuarly liked the custom inputs for retirement income as I am sorting out scenerios with retirement income at different levels.

I was wondering if anyone has used it and how it compares to FIRECALC.

Thanks.

Zman

[Midpack]

I thought it was interesting, as is FIRECALC. And there are others as well. I run them all for reassurance using a variety of inputs from hopeful to terribly pessimistic, but I know none of them could possibly have "the answer." If someone ever comes up with a foolproof withdrawal method/calculator (it would have to be "dynamic"), I'd love it. I've written my own with Excel knowing I will have to make adjustments throughout R as I attempt to 'die broke.'

[unclemick]

I like to play with it - along with The Optimal Retirement Planner and FireCalc.

ORP has taxes and RMD amounts - so I use that one the most. 15th yr of ER and 6 yrs from RMD, single, and 85% tax deferred.

heh heh heh - I do like all three though. And then I take what makes the most sense for my retirement.

[Htown Harry]

Thanks for the post, ZMAN. I was able to quickly plug in some test numbers and found the results presentation useful.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a similar query regarding a freeware program called Forecaster. "Forecaster" program - any opinions?

Not much of a response, so far...

Just doing a cursory comparison of the outputs between the two, I found the account-by-account level of detail in Forecaster helped me to better understand the reasons behind different results when I was running different scenarios. The built-in ability to save the files is nice, too.

Hmmm...another mention of ORP. Looks like I should go check it out.

[jIMOh]

I like this calculator quite a bit. Can someone tell me what the historical standard deviation is for

a) S&P 500?
b) typical 60-40 balanced fund?

[Htown Harry]

Originally Posted by jIMOh

I like this calculator quite a bit. Can someone tell me what the historical standard deviation is for

a) S&P 500?
b) typical 60-40 balanced fund?

Looks like about 15% for the S&P 500 here
http://schwert.ssb.rochester.edu/spvol282k.pdf and here
http://www.ipathetn.com/buywrite-etn-risk-analysis.jsp

BUT, one has to be careful about the period of calculation...

Maybe relative values rather than the absolute numbers would be useful?

Vanguard 500 Index mutual fund shows a 8.67% std. deviation for the most recent three-year period here: http://personal.fidelity.com/researc...?refpr=mflib01

Vanguard Balanced Index (60 stock /40 bond) shows 5.27%

Psst...Wellesley (40/60) shows 3.23