July 28 — Are you the type of person who has a certain “magic number” in mind? The magic number being the amount of savings you think you need to quit the working world and retire. It’s always been an interesting exercise, with the problem that all too often these numbers tend to be unscientific, often relying on shaky assumptions about spending and income.
Finding the magic number is an essential step in every baby boomer’s preparations for a worry-free retirement. Nowadays there are any number of retirement calculators available on the internet. These nifty web pages take the mystery out of the process. On most of them, just enter a few facts like your age, life expectancy, current income and assets - then presto - you get how much you need to save for the retirement income you specify.
At Topretirements.com we have looked at several of these calculators and continue to be impressed with their simplicity. Useful too, at least in terms of knowing in an instant whether you are going to have a retirement problem or not. Since only 50% of baby boomers aged 55+ have saved more than $50,000. it might be a good thing for more people to get the dose of reality that a retirement calculator can provide.
Most of the retirement calculators we list (see first section, Financial) are easy to use. Almost all are identical too, so once you’ve seen one, you seen almost all. The exception is FIRECalc. This one provides more options and sensitivity about different market conditions, giving a range of investment results under very different scenarios A more realistic approach, since who knows what types of returns will affect your portfolio. We recommend you take a look at FIRECalc