- advertisement -
Social Security Calculator
- advertisement - Find a Financial Planner at Retirement Calculator, Inc.
- advertisement - Senior Discounts
- advertisement - Qualify for a Reverse Mortgage at Retirement Calculator, Inc.
Click Here to Find a Financial Planner
- advertisement - Qualify for a Reverse Mortgage at Retirement Calculator, Inc.

About Retirement Calculator, Inc.

Retirement Calculator, Inc. provides the tools and resources necessary to assist you in making critical economic decisions regarding your retirement future.

Recommended Reading

Reverse Mortgage

Let Us Help With
Your Retirement

By putting your home's equity to work, you can take advantage of decreased monthly expenses while gaining cash for travel, medical expenses, home repair, investment or simply enjoying life as you see fit.

Qualify for a Reverse Mortgage Now
- advertisement - Free Retirement Calculator 2.0
Free Newsletter

Retirement Intelligence Information Services

This free newsletter provides investment education in easy to understand terms, to help you, the individual investor.

Sign-up for the
FREE newsletter


Colleen's Corner

Asset Allocation

Often financial "experts" make asset allocation difficult to understand. My goal in this series of articles is for you to understand asset allocation thoroughly, in an easy to understand format.

How Much Should You Save For College Or For Retirement?

Retirement Calculator, Inc.
collegeforretirement.com
Collegeforretirement
How Much Should You Save For College Or For Retirement?

It's difficult to know whether to save for the costs of college or for retirement. You want to be sure that your kids -and even your grandkids -can afford the college education that will help them get ahead. But you also need to be sure that you have all of the money that you need when you retire -money to travel, or for unexpected expenses, or to just be able to have the freedom to live our the retirement you've always dreamed of having.

It sometimes feels like no matter what you do you're not going to be able to meet all of your obligations. Maybe it feels selfish to save for retirement when you need to have the money to help put your kids through college. Maybe you're afraid that if all of your financial planning is focused on paying for your child's education you will never be able to have the money to meet your obligations after you're no longer working.

That conflict is enough to make you feel stuck. It's enough to make you feel like, no matter what you do, you won't be doing enough. That conflict is enough to leave you feeling frustrated and discouraged.

But there is something that you can do. It's something simple, and it will help you to make sure that you are saving for your future and all of the expenses that go with it -from the day to day things to college to retirement.

It's downloading our free retirement calculator by clicking on the red button at the bottom of this page. How will that download help you to find a way to save for college and save for retirement? Well, it will allow you to evaluate your goals and your investment strategies.

But more than that, you will be able to use it to see how each of the stocks, bonds and mutual funds that you've invested in performed over time. You'll be able to look at projections for the ways that your savings and investments will work for you over the next 25 years -and know that those projections take interest rates and inflation into account.

When you've been able to examine the way that your savings and investments performed and will perform, you will be able to evaluate your financial planning strategy. You'll be able to make changes that will ensure that your financial goals are met -both the goals that involve college and for retirement.

But you'll be able to look into making those changes without worrying that you will somehow make the wrong choice. Because you are able to look at the ways in which savings and investments have performed and will perform, you will be able to evaluate potential savings and investments in the same way.

Once you understand your investments as well as the investments you are planning to make, you can speak one on one with a financial advisor during a free consultation. Ask all of the questions you have, listen to the answers and take the advice that you get.

While you are speaking with a financial advisor, you will be able to discuss your strategies, form a plan and work to put that plan into action. You'll be able, once you have an even better understanding of your savings and investments, to plan your financial future -saving for college and for retirement.

Let go of the frustration and discouragement of not knowing how you will save for both your child's college education and for retirement. Take the moment to click the red button and download our free retirement calculator -take control of your financial future.

Find a Qualified Financial Planner in Your Area

Retirement Knowledge Center

Search our extensive retirement knowledge base.

Top 100 Articles by Web Traffic:

Do You Know the Answers to These Important Retirement Questions?

Retirement Homes & Retirement Communities

Retirement Homes is a comprehensive directory of retirement homes, retirement communities, senior housing, long term care and elder care facilities. Retirement Homes will help you learn about all your retirement living, senior housing, and long term care options in the USA and Canada.

Select type of senior housing and preferred location to begin.

Active Lifestyle Independent Living
Congregate Living Assisted Living
Continuing Care Nursing Care
Alzheimer's Care Rehabilitation Care
City: State:  
Learn more about senior housing options.

Advanced Search

Select type of senior housing & zip/postal code to begin.
(*Required Field)

Active Lifestyle Independent Living
Congregate Living Assisted Living
Continuing Care Nursing Care
Alzheimer's Care Rehabilitation Care
Zip/Postal Code:*
(eg. 90210 or M6A 1J2)
Distance:*
Units:
Learn more about senior housing options.

Advanced Search

Enter the name of the senior housing community to begin.

Facility Name:
Learn more about senior housing options.

Advanced Search

Select a region below to begin your senior housing search.

Retire In a Weekend

Would you like to retire, but aren't sure you can?

Have you wondered if you have enough money to retire, how long it will last, how much you can take out, and the best way to invest?

Everyone who has thought about retirement has asked themselves these and other questions. Now you can get ALL the answers in Retire in a Weekend! This short, simple, humorous, easy-to-understand book answers the 10 most popular questions and addresses the 5 biggest concerns people have about retiring! So stop asking yourself IF you can retire ... with Retire in a Weekend! you'll learn HOW to actually do it.

Retirement Calculator Premium

For a limited time, purchase Retire In a Weekend for $29.95 and receive a free download of Retirement Calculator Premium.

Buy Now

Analysis of the Economics of Early Social Security Withdrawal

Robert J. Phillips
Chief Retirement Consultant

Deciding whether or not to take the early withdrawal of social security at age 62 can be difficult. If you need this income at 62 to fund your retirement the decision is fairly straightforward. Take it early! On the other hand, if you have another source of revenue to fund your retirement your decision will be primarily based on lifestyle, health and investment preferences.

Several factors can affect your decision. First is your life expectancy. If you are in good health and have a family history of living beyond 90 then waiting for full benefits may be best. Two other factors impact this decision. First and most important is the value of money or your expected return from your investments. If you are using other investments instead of social security to fund your retirement you should use the rate of return of these investments as your value of money. There is another way to look at the value of money. If you do not require the social security money to live, you can invest the distributions for the future. The rate of return of this investment is your value of money. If your investments will make larger returns such as stocks this would favor taking the early withdrawal.

The last factor impacting your decision is inflation. Social security includes an annual adjustment based on inflation. You cannot control this variable but you should be aware of its impact. If future inflation is significant it will favor a later full distribution

FREE Social Security Calculator:

Find Out Your Breakeven Age

We developed a calculator to assist in analyzing the impact of taking early benefits at age 62 or waiting for full benefits at age 66 to 67 depending on the year you were born...If you were born in 1960 or later your full benefits will begin at age 67 and your reduction for early benefits at age 62 will be 30%. If you were born between 1946 and 1960 your full benefits begin as early as age 66. We have included a chart that summarizes information.

To use the calculator you need to input your year of birth. You also need to input a value of money up to 10% and a projected inflation adjustment. The calculator analyzes income generated over time from both the early and full benefit investments. It calculates the age at which full social security will catch up and breakeven with the early withdrawal. If you were born before 1960 your breakeven age will be impacted by the year you were born. An early breakeven age favors waiting for full benefits.

The social security calculator is not the final answer whether to take an early withdrawal but it does give you additional economic data to assist in that decision. Ultimately you must balance income, investments and lifestyle to optimize your enjoyment during your retirement years.