Retirement Planning Tools

BritishInvestor

eh5757 said:

EvolveMyRetirement is far better than RetireEasy, much cheaper, and even starts as free. It's built around Monte Carlo simulation, and that makes a huge difference. What's the point of projecting into the future when so much is uncertain? EMR takes care of all that. And it self-optimises your strategy: seems like magic to me. I had a query about one of the tool's features, and their support team got back to me almost immediately with the help I needed.

It looks like EMR has been designed with professional advisers in mind, but made easier to use so that anyone can use it. Even me!

Am I the only one who has used this? I'm surprised nobody here mentioned it, even though it's apparently been around since 2014.

" It's built around Monte Carlo simulation, and that makes a huge difference."
Not necessarily in a good way.

cfw1994

eh5757 said:

EvolveMyRetirement is far better than RetireEasy, much cheaper, and even starts as free. It's built around Monte Carlo simulation, and that makes a huge difference. What's the point of projecting into the future when so much is uncertain? EMR takes care of all that. And it self-optimises your strategy: seems like magic to me. I had a query about one of the tool's features, and their support team got back to me almost immediately with the help I needed.

It looks like EMR has been designed with professional advisers in mind, but made easier to use so that anyone can use it. Even me!

Am I the only one who has used this? I'm surprised nobody here mentioned it, even though it's apparently been around since 2014.

I've had a quick look.  Looks "okay", but there is no explanation of the numbers, no illustration of HOW it makes decisions.
It dropped my discretionary spending.   No clear reason why.
A shame - that would really prove (to me) what is going on in the background.   Reading the premium and standard plan blurb, doesn't look like that would help.

Linton

You can get the final UK Ms Money from https://www.garethjmsaunders.co.uk/2011/11/27/download-microsoft-money-2005-for-free/.  It had been available for free from the MS website for some time since they dropped support in 2005 but disappeared at some stage.
I have used it since the late 1990s for managing my day to day accounts and my investments.  I also used the life planning tool for deciding my retirement date and continue to use it for ongoing planning during my retirement.  It has continued to work through multiple upgrades to Windows and in my view is unsurpassed in its facilities.  I suspect MS dropped it because they could not usefully continue to add enhancements to generate sufficient new sales.

westv

eh5757 said:

EvolveMyRetirement is far better than RetireEasy, much cheaper, and even starts as free. I

It's a pity any pricing seems to be hidden away - I assume they want you to log in first.

garmeg

westv said:

eh5757 said:

EvolveMyRetirement is far better than RetireEasy, much cheaper, and even starts as free. I

It's a pity any pricing seems to be hidden away - I assume they want you to log in first.

westv

Thanks. How do you get to that info from the website homepage?

garmeg

westv said:

Thanks. How do you get to that info from the website homepage?

I registered and then logged in. I dont think it is worth paying for really. It's a black box and you have no idea what goes on within and the figures make no sense to me (and I have worked in financial services, including pensions, for just over 30 years).

westv

garmeg said:

westv said:

Thanks. How do you get to that info from the website homepage?

I registered and then logged in. I dont think it is worth paying for really. It's a black box and you have no idea what goes on within and the figures make no sense to me (and I have worked in financial services, including pensions, for just over 30 years).

Ok. So I was right then that the info is hidden unless you register first. Cheap as it may be, that would put me off.

garmeg

westv said:

garmeg said:

westv said:

Thanks. How do you get to that info from the website homepage?

I registered and then logged in. I dont think it is worth paying for really. It's a black box and you have no idea what goes on within and the figures make no sense to me (and I have worked in financial services, including pensions, for just over 30 years).

Ok. So I was right then that the info is hidden unless you register first. Cheap as it may be, that would put me off.

You can still do some basic stuff but you need to register to do that I think.

cfw1994

I registered and put some numbers in.....it looked faintly reasonable (& more flexible/detailed than cfiresim, for example)....but @garmeg is right, it’s a black box with no way of knowing why is suggested some numbers: for example, it reduced my discretionary spending yet said I was likely to leave an inheritance of over a million....even when I told it I wasn’t interested in leaving anything!
A shame: I do think it looks a very decent tool, but without seeing what the black box is doing, I don’t feel I can trust it enough.

Given @eh5757 is a first time poster here, I can only imagine they are linked to the tool/website in some way.    Maybe they are Nick May, the human behind the tool 
 Maybe I am wrong: might be quite nice (decent forum etiquette if nothing else!) if they returned to the thread with some answers