Retirement Planning Tools

AlanP_2

nbal said:

Mrs nbal and I are both 57, both working, a number or DB and DC pensions between us, full state pension and thinking about when to retire. We need a free tool to map out scenarios (lump sum payments, changed pension contributions, lower salary/part-time working, retirement ages, ...) so we can decide what's best for us. Standard Life planner is good, but its difficult to go back and change inputs without SL repeating we need to talk to their retirement people!

Does anyone have any other recommendations/tools? Or has anyone built a spreadsheet they would like to share? I would think there must be quite a few people in our position, and extensive internet searching hasn't turned any decent tools up, especially for couples.

Have tou looked at retireasy?

michaels

How about the SWR spreadsheet on earlyretirementnow?

cobson

Flexible Retirement Planner is free, can handle all of those inputs, and allows multiple scenarios.
The Flexible Retirement Planner | A financial planning tool powered by Monte Carlo Simulation

westv

cobson said:

Flexible Retirement Planner is free, can handle all of those inputs, and allows multiple scenarios.
The Flexible Retirement Planner | A financial planning tool powered by Monte Carlo Simulation

Pity it doesn't work on a Chromebook.

bownyboy

I found https://ficalc.app/ really useful 

ggmf

Somebody must have performed a comparison of the 'free' planners such as cfiresim, https://ficalc.app/  etc. against the more professional (is that the right wording?) tools such as Voyant, Timeline etc. if so are there any comparisons? are the outputs of these tools very similar?

BritishInvestor

ggmf said:

Somebody must have performed a comparison of the 'free' planners such as cfiresim, https://ficalc.app/  etc. against the more professional (is that the right wording?) tools such as Voyant, Timeline etc. if so are there any comparisons? are the outputs of these tools very similar?

I see Voyant and Timeline as fulfilling completely different roles.

Dandytf

cobson said:

Flexible Retirement Planner is free, can handle all of those inputs, and allows multiple scenarios.
The Flexible Retirement Planner | A financial planning tool powered by Monte Carlo Simulation

Thanks I'de need to check via i3 laptop/Win10.
Though screenshots look instantly recognisable, very similar to ETW planner.

NickEMR

I've just come across this discussion, and I noticed several comments about EvolveMyRetirement touching on a few topics. As the creator of the app, I thought I'd answer some of the issues raised. I've grouped them by topic.

1. @eh5757 said "it seemed like magic", @cfw1994 said there was "no explanation of the numbers", and @garmeg said it's "a black box". Some of our users communicated similar sentiments to us directly. In response, we added new features that go a long way to addressing these issues. We added detailed tables to scenarios for users having a Standard subscription. Our feedback from users on these improvements has been positive.

2. @cfw1994 said it "dropped my discretionary spending. No clear reason why", and "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!". The app never tells you you're likely to leave a legacy, only the distribution of possible legacies, including the median value. Even if you say you're not interested in leaving a legacy, that doesn't guarantee you won't leave one. You can't know in advance exactly how long you'll live, or how your investments will perform. The only way of guaranteeing no legacy would be to immediately buy a lifetime annuity, but with low rates that too might well result in low income and less to spend. The app presumably lowered your discretionary spending because it reduced your insolvency risk. Running a sensitivity analysis on discretionary spending should shed some light.

3. Optimisation can sometimes look like a "black box" or "magic". @cfw1994 said there's "no way of knowing why is suggested some numbers". The optimiser arrives at the strategy that gives the best statistical outcome. Being able to evaluate thousands of potential strategies very quickly using a genetic algorithm makes this process far faster than a human could manage. The app doesn't hold opinions: it's all about outcomes. If you edit your strategy, you can compare outcomes. Or by running a sensitivity analysis you can spot trends for specific strategy settings.

4. @westv said that pricing was hidden away, and @garmeg said you needed to register and log in to see the pricing. That's no longer the case, and there's been a dedicated pricing/features comparison page (accessible from the home page) for several months now. By the way, we don't push any ads, so we have to charge a nominal fee for all but the 'basic' users of this app.

I'm happy to answer further questions in this forum. Of course, any user, whether free or subscribed, can contact us directly with queries about using the app or about understanding its results. The output from the app is only ever as good as the input, and sometimes a simple pointer makes a big difference. We also often make enhancements that take into account user suggestions and feedback.

cfw1994

Thanks for dropping in here with some detailed answers @NickEMR  

Might take me some time (a lot going on for the next couple of months!), but I will try to take a fresh look at some point with your comments in mind