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Quick Retirement Planner |
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Read this example of how Fred Look-Ahead
planned his retirement |
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| Fred Look-Ahead just turned thirty-five and wants to retire in thirty years. He and his financial planner Lulu Review used two calculators to plan his retirement. They decided to be conservative and assumed an interest rate of 5% compounded semiannually for a single lump sum amount. For annuities, the payment period and compounding period must be the same. They used 5% compounded monthly. Print this example and use the calculators provided to repeat their work. Then use the calculators to plan your own retirement. | ||
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Step 1 Saving a lump sum. Fred Look-Ahead decided to invest $4000 in a 30 year retirement plan. Using this Simple Savings Calculator, his financial planner Lulu Review put $4,000 into the initial amount cell, made the monthly deposit zero, used the down arrow to make the interest calculation semiannual, put in an interest rate of 5, put 30 into the number of years cell, and the calculator gave a retirement nest egg of $17,599.16. If you don't have $4,000, don't buy a new car when your car payment ends and save the money. |
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Step 2
Saving Monthly Fred thought this was great and decided to put half of his $200 monthly raise into a retirement annuity paying 5% interest compounded monthly for 30 years. Lulu didn't mind because she new that Fred could spend all of next raise on nice presents for you know who! Using this Simple Saving Calculator, she made the initial amount zero, put $100 into the monthly deposit cell, used the down arrow to make the interest calculation monthly, put 5 into the interest cell, put 30 into the number of years cell and the calculator kicked out $83,225.86. Now Lulu was really happy! A total of $17,599.16 + $83, 225.86 = $100,825.02. Lulu knew just how they would spend the money! |
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Step 3 Spending
the money Fred might be dumb, but he's not stupid. Rather than going on Lulu's around the world cruise he put $100,000 into a fifteen year annuity paying 5%. Using this Basic Payout Calculator, he put $100,000 into the account balance cell, 5 into the interest rate cell, and 15 into the Desired Length of Payout (years) cell. The result was $793.76 per month. Fred planned to turned $4,000 plus $100/month into $793.76 per month X 180 months = $142,876.80. Magic! |
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| Editors note: Had Fred been more daring and put his money into something designed to pay 8%, the expected nest egg would be $183,014.45 a gain of over $40,000. His monthly payment with an annuity paying 5% would be $1,452.70. Many people split their retirement payments into conservative funds and aggressive funds because they recognize nothing is guaranteed. The three major peak to peak bear stock markets of the 20th century lasted had a combined duration of over 50 years. A survey of wealthy people found them very conservative with an amount of money needed to maintain their life style. With the balance, they were very aggressive. | ||
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