That is a beautiful website! Congrats on the launch and good luck with your project!
Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
161–170 of 218 posts
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#162"In order to get a good understanding of the purchasing power of your future retirement savings for today, you can do a “simple” calculation: Take your total retirement savings and multiply it by 3%. For example, if you have $1.25m (retirement savings), multiplied by 0.03% (inflation), you get $45,000 in inflation. Then you subtract that number from your total savings: $1.25m - $45k = $880k. This will give you a baseline to understand your financial situation."
Yeah, so $1.25m - $45K is NOT 880K.
Also, the effect of inflation compounds every year. So maybe you want to divide the nominal answers you are giving out by (1.03)^num-years-from-today to get the real value (in today's dollars) .
Please do better math.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO, publicly despairing that social security won’t exist in the future only serves to shift the Overton window, making it more likely that social security won’t exist.
Of course it won’t exist. It’s an asinine, regressive policy that uses trick after evil trick to convince voters that it’s not an unholy abomination. I know my rhetoric sounds like a joke, but I’m 100% serious. You have the fake notion that “employers pay half” (no, the worker pays 100% of it truly), you have its regressive nature (poor people start working earlier and also die earlier, so it’s a redistribution towar…
>You have the fake notion that “employers pay half” (no, the worker pays 100% of it truly)
You have the fake notion that if we didn't have SS, employers would pay you more.
>you have the fact that it’s sold as a sort of insurance/retirement account when in actuality it’s neither.
It is in actuality neither. However, because of it, seniors were the age group who were least likely to be in poverty during the recent recession. During those years, it really acted well as a safety net.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#164Those 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…
Another more detailed one is cfiresim http://cfiresim.com/
I love "retirement end year" in this...aka death.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#165Be 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.
Even worse, "aggressive" is being used here synonymously with "higher rate of return." The risk isn't reflected in the graph at all. Why would anyone looking at this not choose aggressive? Look how much higher the total is! Really misleading without some visual indicator that your return might actually be lower for some time horizon ...
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Even worse, "aggressive" is being used here synonymously with "higher rate of return." The risk isn't reflected in the graph at all. Why would anyone looking at this not choose aggressive? Look how much higher the total is! Really misleading without some visual indicator that your return might actually be lower for some time horizon ...
The graph should really be cone-shaped at the far end to reflect range of risk with aggro and conservative expectations. A gradient to show high-end and low-end of returns would be visually very instructive.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#167Be 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.…
I agree with this. Inflation is a huge factor and needs to be considered with any retirement calculator because you can't assume that your $100K today is worth $100K in 20 years. I actually built a calculator myself to better accommodate for inflation and have the ability to tweak the numbers just a bit more. If you're interested: https://www.financialtoolbelt.com/calculators/financial-inde...
Why is there a minimum amount on the field for how much you need? i.e. if I make $500k now, why am I forced to spend $100k in retirement? What if I only need to spend $50k?
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> >saving 10% of your salary >impossible for most people Part of me is tempted to look up statistics to make the point but if you are making more than 150% of the poverty line in the US, you can save 10% of your income, it is a choice not to. > >spend >impossible for many (most?) places with jobs It all depends on where you are willing to live. Also, if you move to somewhere to get a job, before you accept the offer…
>if you move to somewhere to get a job you're out of touch. this is not even the same type of job that the majority of people have access to. people's standard of living is far beneath what you suspect. >If you are making $50k, it is a matter of choice. try having a mortgage or high rent, a medical problem, kids, parents who need care, a car, student loans, clothing that aren't tatters, an emergency fund.... and all…
>mortgage or high rent
Find a cheaper place to live.
>a medical problem
This is the one I have the most sympathy for, US healthcare is broken, people shouldn't have to go bankrupt to pay for life saving care.
>kids
1) Wait until you can support them until you have them. 2) Just because you spend a lot of money does not mean you will raise better children. Americans as a whole seem to think otherwise.
> parents who need care
Again, I am sympathetic but this doesn't apply to everyone, or even the majority of people.
> a car
You can find a reliable used car for ~10k often times much less than that. Getting a ~20k or worse a ~40k car every 3 years is a waste.
> student loans
On one hand, people were given really bad advice on college. On the other hand, people took really bad advice. High school need to be better informed about the long term cost of college.
> clothing that aren't tatters
Goodwill, Ross, discount stores all great places to get non-tattered clothing.
> an emergency fund
If you are disciplined enough to build an emergency fund, after it is funded, keep being disciplined and start saving for retirement.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yowzers! Please tell me what this magical investment is where I can expect an average rate of return of 9% (let alone 12%). That is off the charts optimistic.
You can get guaranteed 11% returns at https://www.twino.eu/
I used it for a while; it did work and their published financials are solid, but being happy with some risk I decided stocks where a better play.
Still, it's a useful baseline.
Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with this. Inflation is a huge factor and needs to be considered with any retirement calculator because you can't assume that your $100K today is worth $100K in 20 years. I actually built a calculator myself to better accommodate for inflation and have the ability to tweak the numbers just a bit more. If you're interested: https://www.financialtoolbelt.com/calculators/financial-inde...
Why is there a minimum amount on the field for how much you need? i.e. if I make $500k now, why am I forced to spend $100k in retirement? What if I only need to spend $50k?
I think if you look in the advanced fields you can change to how much you need in retirement to set a separate number. We auto calculate and extrapolate based on current savings rate, but a lot of people will spend much less in retirement.
Just fill out the field income in retirement under advanced fields and I think that should (hopefully) be what you're looking for.