Pension/savings/investment retirement planning tool

ozzage

Hi all

As part of my sudden addiction to planning my financial future, I would love to find a good tool which will let me make a long-term plan to see what the probable outcome will be of my actions now and in the future.

I don't just mean a simple pension calculator, which I can find online.

I really want something where I can (separately) enter my normal savings, cash ISAs, investments (eg S&S ISA), pension contributions, and then enter the expected interest rates, inflation rates maybe, expected deposits, all year by year into each of those categories.

Then I can see at age 65 what I should be able to expect as a lump-sum value in each of these categories and in total.

As the years go on, this can be adjusted to reflect what has really happened and the likely outcome adjusted accordingly.

Does anybody know of such a tool?!?!

Thanks

Linton

The Lifetime Planner in MSMoney will do a lot of what you want. I have used it to plan my retirement.

dunstonh

Does anybody know of such a tool?!?!

Its called an IFA

I am not aware of a tool that is available free of charge that would do all those things within each of the different tax wrappers. There are some that come close but no freebies that do all that in once place.

Lokolo

dunstonh wrote: »

Its called an IFA

I am not aware of a tool that is available free of charge that would do all those things within each of the different tax wrappers. There are some that come close but no freebies that do all that in once place.

What happens when IFA retires or whatever? Do you just get passed on?

ozzage

Thanks for the responses all. I've got a copy of MS Money and am trying that out. Seems to be most of what I want (and more). A little more complex than I was after, but maybe that's good as it forces me to enter everything in detail and think more about my spending etc.

brighterlight_2

I have found that every IFA I have listened to has got their payment from whatever company they recommend, and my pension pot has performed dismally. The IFA the pension investment company, they all cream off their fees up-front. Nowadays I make all my own decisions, for good or bad, so far so good. I would suggest you could find someone who is good with Excel - http://www.excelexpert.com/ is good and not expensive. You can give them the exact details of what you want to do, and they can create a spreadsheet where you plug in the numbers and maybe have some variable fields where you can enter 'what if' scenarios, for example, assumed rates of growth, rates of inflation for the same period, etc.
You seem to know exactly what you want, I'm sure someone can put it into a spreadsheet for you.

dunstonh

I have found that every IFA I have listened to has got their payment from whatever company they recommend

You mean to say that IFAs get paid to do their job. Goodness. What a concept. Being paid to do your job... I must look into that

and my pension pot has performed dismally.

Needs to be put in context with the timescale and where you invested. e.g. if you invested mainly in equities 12 months ago then it would go down short term. That doesnt make is dismal.

Nowadays I make all my own decisions, for good or bad, so far so good.

Good for you. However, it should also be said that a large number of DIYers also go on to make awful decisions. Common errors are investing above their risk profile and/or fashion investing. Not understanding tax wrappers is another thing and falling into the belief that because they lost money between 1999 and 2001 when the FA invested their money and they made loads in their self invested ISA between 2002 and 2006 that they are so much better. Not realising that it was to do with the underlying investments.

As a business, I tend to pick up a lot of ex DIYers who have realised that they dont have the time and/or knowledge required to do it. Some will, some wont.