Math error: $1.25m - $45k is not $880k. It's 1.205M.
Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
81–90 of 218 posts
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#82All this does is scare me. I honestly hope I die before I have to retire, because there's no way I'm going to have saved enough money to live off of, even modestly, and no way I'm going to remain sharp enough to continue earning through and beyond my 60s.
> there's no way I'm going to have saved enough money to live off of
It is possible. It will take work and change on your part. The first step is to track your spending. The easiest way to do this is get an account with mint, ynab (you need a budget), or personal capital. You can link all of your accounts with the site and app. You can then categorized your spending. After you do this you can start seeing where you can reduce your spending. The major areas you can save on are housing, transportation, food, and miscellaneous. The reverse order is probably the easiest to reduce costs.
The Millionaire Next Door is a great book that talks about the difference in mindset between people who are able to build wealth well and those who are not able to. It is really eye opening if you are always broke.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#83Be careful with this: The projections are gross (ie not inflation-adjusted) and the advice buried in the explanatory text below does not sufficiently discuss this issue. It says you can do a "simple" calculation by applying one year's worth of inflation versus a compounded rate of return. Assuming historical inflation rates, the value of the savings it projects will be significantly eroded compared to what it shows.…
Yeah, it's also using a 9% rate of return for the "conservative" scenario and 12% for aggressive. Due to the exponential nature of compound interest, just a single point of overoptimism in your real growth number leads to a massive overestimation of your results. 1.07 ^ 30 = 7.6, 1.09 ^ 30 = 13.3, and 1.12 ^ 30 = 30.0 It's baseline assumptions are way off.
Wow, that's pretty crazy - ~5% bonds for conservative and ~7-8% for aggressive would have been more appropriate in my opinion. And I feel even those numbers may be a little optimistic.
Currently it's more like "what if you have a great market year every year until you retire" or "what if you can reliably beat the market" - neither of which is likely to happen.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#84http://firecalc.com has better math and less distracting gunk like the nonsense ways to "Save more"
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I opened, there is too much info for my small brain to grasp and closed it. :-(
Best to figure this stuff out sooner rather than later, your future self will thank you. Don't bury your head in the sand on retirement. I ignored retirement planning until I was in my mid 30s, I wish I thought about it more before then. Read "A Random Walk down Wall Street" and start investing.
+1 for A Random Walk Down Wall Street, it was really eye opening to see how unpredictable the market really is.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#86Those seeking a much more sophisticated retirement calculator, where you can set nearly every parameter, such as rate of return, amount saved, and nearly everything else, should checkout firecalc. You can select different withdrawl rate strategies, different investment strategies, deferred compensation strategies, different investment mixes, and many, many other things. The interface isn't as pretty, but it is unbeli…
I opened, there is too much info for my small brain to grasp and closed it. :-(
That's sort of the point. The reality is complex and the future is unpredictable. Simple calculators give false confidence in their results.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#87All this does is scare me. I honestly hope I die before I have to retire, because there's no way I'm going to have saved enough money to live off of, even modestly, and no way I'm going to remain sharp enough to continue earning through and beyond my 60s.
> there's no way I'm going to have saved enough money to live off of It is possible. It will take work and change on your part. The first step is to track your spending. The easiest way to do this is get an account with mint, ynab (you need a budget), or personal capital. You can link all of your accounts with the site and app. You can then categorized your spending. After you do this you can start seeing where you c…
You have no idea what parent poster's income and skills are.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pay off a modest $100k house in a low cost of living area and you should be able to survive on Social Security alone. Save more if you can though.
Social security is a supplement, it’s not meant for you to live off, nor should you expect it to always be around.
Social security is meant to be a foundation, not a supplement. It's supposed be enough to live on, but not enough to live luxuriously on.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pay off a modest $100k house in a low cost of living area and you should be able to survive on Social Security alone. Save more if you can though.
Social Security, in my retirement? That's a laugh.
Even the conservative assumptions of the SSA show that SS will have some funding for your retirement, just not 100% of what is current promised. (Something like 75% 30 years from now)
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#90Those seeking a much more sophisticated retirement calculator, where you can set nearly every parameter, such as rate of return, amount saved, and nearly everything else, should checkout firecalc. You can select different withdrawl rate strategies, different investment strategies, deferred compensation strategies, different investment mixes, and many, many other things. The interface isn't as pretty, but it is unbeli…
Is there anything on how to figure out what your retirement goal should be?
Like how am I supposed to estimate costs I will need in retirement to know how much I need to start with.