One size does not fit all when it comes to retirement calculators. Some retirees are single, others married. Some have a pension, others rely on social security. We scoured the internet to find the best retirement calculators for every unique scenario.
6 Most popular retirement calculator scenarios.
- Award-winning retirement calculator
- I want a retirement calculator that caters to married couples.
- I want a retirement calculator that factors in a pension.
- At what age can I retire?
- How much monthly income will I generate?
- How much monthly income will a fixed annuity provide?
Below – we will show you the best calculator for each of the scenarios above.
1. The best retirement calculator 2021.
SmartAsset’s award-winning calculator can help you determine exactly how much you need to save to retire.
Best retirement calculator 2021: Smart Asset
Full Link: https://smartasset.com/retirement/retirement-calculator
2. The best retirement calculator for married couples.
Married couples are unique in that there are 2 incomes to be input and there are strategies couples can use to better optimize social security income and reduce taxes when withdrawing from their 401k.
Best retirement calculator for married couples: Merril Edge
Full Link: https://www.merrilledge.com/retirement/personal-retirement-calculator
Pros: Easy to understand, input spouse’s numbers to get a full view, you can add social security plus your retirement age.
3. The best retirement calculator that factors in pension income.
Some retirees are lucky enough to get pensions in retirement. Below is the best calculator that factors in pension income.
Best retirement calculator that factors in pension income: 360financialliteracy.org
Full Link: https://www.360financialliteracy.org/Calculators/Retirement-Pension-Planner
Pros: Easy to understand, input both your and your spouse’s pension income (if applicable)
4. At what age can I retire?
Most retirement calculators ask you to enter a lot of data – and output how much you need to save (while making you sad) in order to retire. What if you want to find out the opposite? Given the amount of money I have, at what age can I retire?
Best retirement calculator that tells me when I can retire: fortpittcapital.com
Full link: https://www.fortpittcapital.com/resources/calculators/retirement-age-calculator/
Pros: Easy to understand, tells you when you can retire
Cons: Very basic, does not factor in social security.
5. How much monthly income will I generate in retirement?
There are a lot of great calculators that answer the above question. Here’s my favorite:
Full link: https://digital.fidelity.com/stgw/digital/planning/retirement/retirement-income-calculator/ (if you like to type in data) or https://investor.vanguard.com/calculator-tools/retirement-income-calculator/ (if you like telling a story)
Pros: Both are intuitive and easy to use. You can enter social security income and other sources as well.
6. How much monthly income will a fixed annuity provide?
Annuities provide a fixed income for life. They get a bad rap in most cases due to the high fees and loss of principal (in some cases) when you die. However, you can get a higher and safer monthly income in some cases, so it may make sense for some.
Here is a great calculator for guaranteed monthly annuity income:
Full link: https://digital.fidelity.com/prgw/digital/gie/
Pros: easy to use, quick workflow to get results.
Summary:
All the above are great tools to understand your financial situation and plan for retirement. However, they require a large nest egg of $1 million+ in order to generate a “livable” monthly income in retirement (which few people achieve).
What if I told you there were simple strategies to generate high monthly income – with low risk – in today’s overvalued stock market. What this means is that you need half the amount saved to generate the same monthly income, so you can retire early.
You can read more here: https://retirementmonthlyincome.com/product/ebook-how-to-retire-early/
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