What’s so important about retirement calculators? Why are these tools of more than just technical interest? Well, they’re important because either you, or a financial planner, will use the results from a retirement calculator to make one of the most crucial decisions of your life: Are you financially independent yet, or not? If you get…
I’ve used many retirement calculators. More than 80 at last count. I relied on the best retirement planning tools to project my own retirement trajectory, culminating in early retirement at age 50. Then I started this blog and began reviewing retirement calculators. Over time, these posts have become the most popular on the site. I’ve…
Emily and her husband David retired early in June 2018. The plan was to pursue their dreams of living in the mountains of New Hampshire, enjoying an adventurous life with their two sons. Less than 2 years later, David succumbed to a battle with glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive and lethal brain tumor. Last week I…
I’ve observed a common pattern among readers I’ve met. Many of you are natural savers. You’ve amassed enough money, often more than enough, to likely last the rest of your life. You’re ready for change in your life. But you’re afraid to leave your career and start spending assets you’ve worked so hard to accumulate….
Retirement calculators are not all created equal. And the differences between them are more than just an academic issue. Why? Because you’ll be using these tools to make one of the most important decisions of your life. If you’re approaching retirement, or want to someday, either you or an advisor will likely use a retirement…
Everyone knows they should start saving for retirement as soon as possible. What people know they “should” do and what people actually do is not the same thing. According to AARP, nearly half of American households headed by someone age 55 or older have no retirement savings. What is someone far behind on retirement savings…
This site may be best known for retirement calculator reviews, including the most comprehensive collection of retirement calculator reviews on the web. Ultimately, we would love to find “the one” perfect retirement calculator for everyone. Unfortunately, that perfect retirement calculator doesn’t exist. We all have unique preferences, needs, and desires. It is important to find…
A foundational leg of this site has long been its retirement calculator reviews. Those started with my somewhat tongue-in-cheek article on Why Most Retirement Calculators Don’t Work in 2012. I went on to write my very first set of calculator reviews in The 3 Best Free Retirement Calculators the next year. This I followed eventually…
PRALANA GOLD RETIREMENT CALCULATOR The Mercedes-Benz of Retirement Calculators See into your financial future with arguably the most advanced personal financial model available at any price. Comprehensive help and simplified input get you started fast. Detailed assets/real estate, income, and expense input. Optimize retirement withdrawals with the most accurate tax calculations available in a personal…
A few years ago, I left my career as a physical therapist at age 41. I decided to pursue a completely different financially independent, retired early (FIRE) lifestyle. Around the same time, my parents asked me to go over their finances with them. They were preparing for traditional retirement in their 60’s. After years of…
A few months ago, divorce Attorney Ronan Blake sent me an email. He asked to write a guest post sharing his perspectives about how divorce can affect your finances and retirement plans. Understanding how divorce would affect your retirement is a very important topic that we’ve never directly addressed. Still, I initially planned to decline…
How does your retirement equation work? When you finally retire, does your financial life go on autopilot, subject to precise mathematical rules? Or, is the retirement equation more a guideline than prescription? So your financial life after retirement is subject to a set of variables, but the end result — exactly how your wealth will…
Tammy LaGorce recently wrote an excellent piece for the New York Times highlighting the difficulty retirees have spending down the retirement assets they worked so hard to accumulate. I hear this sentiment frequently in emails from readers. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College reported half of retirees are afraid to spend from their…
In a comment responding to my recent post about making better decisions in the face of uncertainty, a reader wrote: “Life is inherently risky. To try and compensate for every contingency is irrational. We can “what if” ourselves right into a straight jacket! You retired early … you won!” As a lifelong football fan, this…
A few months ago, I crossed paths with real estate investor G. Brian Davis who asked if he could write a guest post for Can I Retire Yet? Using rental real estate to create retirement income is a topic of interest for many readers, and a topic Darrow and I have little personal experience to…
Complaining about taxes is our national pastime. Many people think others aren’t paying their fair share. At the same time, we’re all certain we’re paying too much. Nearly everyone complains about taxes. Few people take the time to actually understand the tax code and learn the easy, legal and low risk ways they can reduce…
Pretirement is a term being proposed to describe a phase of life between career and retirement. Pretirement is a process that takes place over years, even decades, versus a single decision to retire. It is characterized by cutting back on work earlier in life, but continuing some work indefinitely. Why do we need this new…
You run out of money. That’s the fundamental event that most retirement calculators try to predict. If there’s a strong probability that your money will last your lifetime — congratulations — you’re financially independent! But, if not, then you need to keep working, or generate retirement income, or curtail your lifestyle. There are many possible…
“When a thing is done and past, even fools are wise at last!” —Homer Hindsight is 20/20. The further you go in life, the easier it is to look back and understand the results of your earlier decisions. Nowhere is this more true than in personal finance. Relatively small changes in your work, your purchases,…
If you’re an Android user, please take a minute to download our new Free retirement calculator from the Google Play Store. This simple, easy app gives you a quick snapshot of your retirement situation. You’ll get answers in minutes. Or, if you’d like a full-blown financial planner in the palm of our hand, try out…
I recently read “The Personal MBA” by Josh Kaufman. The book describes universal principles that can be applied to any business. As a student of personal finance and retirement planning, I saw many parallels between business principles described in the book and principles of managing my own personal finances. I kept thinking of JD Roth’s…
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