The aim of the retirement calculator is to help clarify how much money you will need at retirement. Most people accept that one day they will retire but very few actually plan on how much money they will need when the time comes.

You may have heard the saying

“If you fail to plan then you plan to fail”

Inital Investment
Current Age
Retirement Age
Annual Amount Required

Simply by spending a few minutes on the retirement calculator you can have a goal to aim for and lets face it if you know where the goals are at least you can be headed in the right direction.

The way to work out how much money you need is quite simple. By working out when you want to retire, how much money you have now and how much money you want at retirement you can work backwards to find the annual rate of return that will get you to your goal.

To give you an example if you were 40 years old with $100,000 and you wanted to retire by age 60 with an annual income of $100,000. Then you would need to find out what rate of return would turn $100,000 into a $1,000,000 within 20 years.

The rate of return required would be 12.5% per annum to reach your goal.

The reason I chose $1,000,000 in lump sum at retirement is because this amount invested at 10% per annum would give you the desired $100,000 a year to live off and if you could continue to achieve these returns you would never need to touch your principle.

My first suggestion would be to calculate how much money you require per annum to actually survive.

Then once you know how much you need figure out how much you want as this will be the difference between existing and LIVING.

Once you know the rate of return you require annually then you can find an investment or investments that will get you there.