A real retirement calculator

[Tim Douglas]

Ok I keep on doing these stupid retirement calculators to make sure I am on the right path and I constantly get results that there is no way accurate. I am 33 years old have only about $1000 saved in my 401K and $3000 in an IRA but my ways have changed and I now put in 20% in my 401K (I make 36K a year) plus I am planning on putting at least $3000 in a Roth every year until I retire. My problem is that in all the calculators they say that first of all I am not putting in enough to have 85% of my wages put away. I really do not need 85% of my wages because I am putting over 20% into savings so therefore shouldn’t I only need 65% of my wages to live? Some of the calculators that I have seen actually say that I need to put away another $3000 a month (USAA FSB). Is there a calculator that will take in account that I do not need to factor in the money that I currently don’t need in the retirement goal?

 

[Cut-Throat]

Tim,

Use FIRECalc on this site. You are using Stockbrokers Calulators and they are just trying to get more of your money!

http://www.fireseeker.com/

 

[Hyperborea]

Use FIRECalc on this site. You are using Stockbrokers Calulators and they are just trying to get more of your money!

As I posted a while ago you can run FIREcalc in reverse to see what happens to savings.

http://early-retirement.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=young;action=display;num=1093301458;start=2

 

[slepyhed]

I'm 33 too. If I had a dollar for every time I've read "According to an EBRI study..."

Anyway, according to some oft-sited EBRI study, lots of folks have never even tried to calculate how much they need to save to be able to retire some day.

I've tried every calculator I've come across. I'm at the ponit now where I know, from memory, every single number that these calculators ask for. I know how much I make, how much I'll need in retirement, how much I have saved, how much I'm saving now, etc...

I don't know what kind of return I'll get on my investments. I don't know what kind of inflation we're going to see over the next 30 years. I don't know what the tax rates will be 10 years from now. I don't know how much college is going to cost for my daughter 15 years from now. I don't know how much, if any, social security benefits I might get, or when. I have no clue how much healthcare will cost me after I retire.

So, yes, I've tried to calculate how much I should save. My answer is that I need to save somewhere between 0 and 40% of my gross pay. (Zero is possible for me because I already have some money saved away with 35 years until I need to draw on it). About all I get out of these calculators is that saving more money is better than saving less, at least in terms of how much you might have someday.

-Mike Miller