Exponent Investment Management Retirement calculator is a tool that helps you determine how much money you may need to save in order to retire with enough income to live comfortably. It calculates the future value of your savings based on assumptions you select. You can modify these assumptions to customize your results.
The first page asks you to enter information about your current situation. This includes your yearly household income (before taxes), the amount of retirement savings you have in a 401(k) or other accounts, and how much you plan to contribute each year. It also includes an estimate of your Social Security benefits if you choose to include them.
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On the next page, you’ll see a graph of how your savings will grow over time. You can adjust the growth rate to change the projected total amount you’ll have in retirement. You can also select a range of annual pension benefit amounts and whether or not they increase with inflation. You can even select how much of your future savings you want to have taxed at the time of withdrawal (the default is 0%).
You can then input your expected lifespan and a rate of return ranging from 1% to 20%, although it doesn’t seem prudent to allow people to project rates of return that are significantly higher than reasonable historical rates of return. The calculator then projects your future monthly expenses and compares them to the total you’ll have available in retirement, allowing you to determine whether or not you’re on track to meet your goals.