Retirement Planning Software

[notsheigetz]

Any recommendations?

I've been playing with Fidelity's but I have a hard time trusting it after I found a major mistake in some of their calculations with another product and also because they tell me that the average return on my current allocations, which happens to be 100% PP, is only 6.6%. They tell me I need to switch to an allocation with at least 60% in stocks to meet my goals.

I'm a software developer so I've been thinking about writing my own but if anybody knows of a good tool I'd love to hear about it.

[Mountaineer]

I tried ESPlanner a couple of years ago.  Probably the best one of several with which I dabbled.  But, my conclusion is that if one needs that level of detail (using the ESPlanner) to make themselves feel comfortable on pulling the retirement switch - then one is not financially or mentally ready to retire.  Predicting what is going to happen 20 or 30 years down the road is akin to witch doctoring.  Tweaking a retirement plan today by a few dollars or a few percent here and there is not going to really make much difference in the long run.  Having stated that caution, another good retirement planning tool is Jim Otar's book available here - http://www.retirementoptimizer.com/ . 

... Mountaineer

[KevinW]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does retirement planning software compute exactly? My plan is: invest as much as I can until a conservative SWR covers my expenses. At times I've had need to do some back of the envelope calculations, but spreadsheets and tiny Python scripts have met that need.

[MachineGhost]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does retirement planning software compute exactly? My plan is: invest as much as I can until a conservative SWR covers my expenses. At times I've had need to do some back of the envelope calculations, but spreadsheets and tiny Python scripts have met that need.

Its mostly portfolio tracking, cash flow considerations (annuities, SSA, etc.), tax considerations and if you're lucky, Monte Carlo and/or historical stress testing.  I just did my annual perusal last week to see what new software was available, and it was still a joke.  Even if Quicken sucks, it's still the easiest to use.  Most retirement software is aimed at financial advisors, not the end consumer, so they are expensive and user-unfriendly.

[KevinW]

Huh. Thanks.

[notsheigetz]

I tried ESPlanner a couple of years ago.  Probably the best one of several with which I dabbled.  But, my conclusion is that if one needs that level of detail (using the ESPlanner) to make themselves feel comfortable on pulling the retirement switch - then one is not financially or mentally ready to retire.  Predicting what is going to happen 20 or 30 years down the road is akin to witch doctoring.  Tweaking a retirement plan today by a few dollars or a few percent here and there is not going to really make much difference in the long run.  Having stated that caution, another good retirement planning tool is Jim Otar's book available here - http://www.retirementoptimizer.com/ . 

... Mountaineer

I tried ESPlanner too. Didn't like it but I don't remember why. Most of the free ones are too simplistic.

Fidelity's planner is fairly comprehensive on the inputs but not so much on the outputs. It does its calculations and then tells you how much money you will still have when you die or by how many years you will outlive your assets. Details of how they made those calculations are missing and as I said, having observed a very large mistake in their calculations before, I don't trust it.

I agree that it is pointless to try to predict what is going to happen 20 or 30 years from now (although I will predict that in 30 years I'll be dead). In my case I'm getting close to the time to pull the plug and as long as I still am able to work I want to at least have the comfort of knowing I have a viable plan in place before calling it quits. I don't want to end up kicking myself for not working one more year while I was able to.