It’s never too early to start thinking about your retirement plans. I spend time every quarter looking over my investments, making sure my debt payments are on track, and gauge how much money I’m saving to see if I’m able to reach my goals. Using a retirement investing calculator isn’t something you need to do that often, but especially with inflation changing how much money is needed to survive with a surging cost of goods, it’s never too early – or often – to break out the old retirement calculator and see where things stack up.
I’m currently having my team build out a retirement calculator. Until then, I recommend you use the one at BankRate.com. It’s by far the most thought out and complex calculator that I’ve found in my many years of covering retirement investing.
While you are here, if you are nearing the age of retirement and worried about what a stock market crash could do to your savings or retirement portfolio, you need to look into using precious metals as a hedge. It’s a strategy I personally employ and recommend to anyone worried about future market turbulence. You can read about it here.
What to Know About Retirement Calculators
There are some things you’ll have to have ready when you go to figure out where you stand in terms of retiring. I’ll cover those now so you are prepared.
Inputs You’ll Need Available:
Current Age
Enter your current age.
Age of Retirement
This is the age in you are hoping to retire. For clarity, the calculator will assume that you won’t be contributing more to your retirement portfolios at this age.
Annual Household Income
Your annual income, including your spouse’s, if you are married.
Annual Retirement Savings
The amount of money you put away each year into dedicated retirement accounts.
Current Retirement Savings
The amount you have saved in qualified retirement accounts.
Expected Income Increase
Any amount of income you expect to add to your current earnings.
Income Required at Retirement
This is the amount of money from your retirement accounts you’ll need to access right away when you plan on retiring. This number varies a lot from person to person depending on needs and lifestyle.
Years of Retirement Income
The expected number of years you’ll anticipate using your retirement savings.
Of course, if you are near retirement age and want to protect your retirement, I suggest you look into a gold backed IRA account.
When you have all of this information handy, you are able to plug them into the aforementioned retirement calculator and see the results. Some people may love what they see, and others may worry that they have not saved enough money. Whatever your scenario is, this is simply a guide that can help you understand where you are at financially. Everyone has different ideas of what retirement looks like. Some are looking for something lavish, while others will scale down their lifestyle and do something totally different than what they were used to in their working years.
About Tim Schmidt
Tim Schmidt is an Entrepreneur who has covered retirement investing since 2012. He started IRA Investing to share his expertise in using his Self-Directed IRA for alternative investments. His views on retirement investing have been highlighted in USA Today, Business Insider, Tech Times, and more. He invested with Goldco.
