Fidelity RIP

[Gone4Good]

I'm curious: how do you think knowing Fidelity's assumptions will help you?

I'm curious why the answer to that question isn't obvious.

So you plug in a bunch of financial information into a calculator and it tells you "Great Job! You're Ready to Retire TODAY!!!" or maybe "Tough luck, you need to save another $2MM."

Do you think those are reasonable conclusions?

Is there anyway to know without having some idea how the calculator arrived at those results?

It's as simple as that.

And what about anything I've written here suggests I'm searching for some kind of certainty? I'm simply trying to understand how a tool arrives at it's results so I can decide whether it is a tool that I think is worth using.

 

[Options]

Well it's not obvious given the points I listed above. OTOH, I understand your desire, and I too would like to know Fidelit's assumptions, but I'm not sure how much good that will do, given what I stated above. Other calculators I've used, including i-orp, esplanner, financial engines, FC, *******--and even a free financial plan from VG when it was available--have all been data points to me, nothing more (I have found Fidelity's outputs to be the most conservative, however). Other data points have included tax rate modeling, SS reform modeling, health care increase modeling, tax reform modeling, PF end life modeling, etc.

Point is, none of this--no calculator, no tool, even our own spreadsheets--is precise or exact, and can never be (obviously!). What do to? Same thing you did before retirement: best you can with as many inputs as possible, remaining flexible, responsive, adaptible.

It seems to me the statement "I'm simply trying to understand how a tool arrives at its results so I can decide whether it is a tool that I think is worth using", implies you are looking for certainty of some kind (aren't we all? why else bother with any of this?). If you do figure out Fidelity's assumptions, please be sure to let the rest of us know!

 

[Gone4Good]

It seems to me the statement "I'm simply trying to understand how a tool arrives at its results so I can decide whether it is a tool that I think is worth using", implies you are looking for certainty of some kind

Yup, you got me.

The guy who retired at 38 and has spent the last six years with no fixed address, no home, no car, no physical possessions of any kind other than what he can carry on his back; who sleeps in some 100 different beds each year; who seldom knows where he can get a cup of coffee in the morning or a bus to his next destination in the afternoon; who rarely speaks the local language - the guy who deliberately put himself in that position, what he really craves is certainty. Most of all he hopes against hope that he can find the certainty that he so desperately needs with Fidelity's Retirement Planning Calculator.

Yup. You got me all figured out.

 

[Options]

As you are intent on repeatedly missing the point , I'll leave it there.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Gone4Good]

As you are intent on repeatedly missing the point , I'll leave it there.

Seeing as how you are intent on repeatedly telling me what my own motivations are, I think that's best.