CNN Retirement Calculator

[IowaStache]

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[robotclown]

According to this calculator, you're actually better off making 20k a year than 1M a year, because then you 'need' less in retirement.  Good times, CNN.

[BlueMR2]

I was checking out the Ameriprise retirement calculator yesterday.  40% on there is the lowest you can go for the amount of income that you turn around and spend each year...  :-/

[MoneyCat]

According to this calculator, you're actually better off making 20k a year than 1M a year, because then you 'need' less in retirement.  Good times, CNN.

ROFL!  That is absolutely hilarious.

[boarder42]

yeah i was looking for a retirement calc for the longest time and that search actually lead me to the "shockingly simple" post on MMMs website.  So i'm glad these calculators have these limits or i never would have discovered this site.  And i would have continued living assuming i needed 4-5MM

[chuckaluck]

Sorry - this is just weird.  I was going to post in one of the Gauntlet threads and wanted to check my expected net worth growth.  I just googled a retirement calculator and clicked on CNN Money -

You can't set an age lower than 50
You can't set a savings rate higher than 25%
"What you need" has one choice - 85% of your income.  So a guy making 75k "needs" $2.6 million to retire and a guy making $150k "needs" $6.2M - regardless of where they live

http://money.cnn.com/calculator/retirement/retirement-need/

The "rule of thumb" that you need 85% of gross income to live in retirement really gets my blood boiling because it makes no sense for those of us who save intelligently.  For example, lets say I make 50000.00 a year, and max out my 401K, and because  I am over 50 years old, I get to deduct a total of 24000.00 (18000 + 6000, respectively), right off the top.  This leaves me with 26000.00 to live on.  Obviously I can do it, and have done it, for years.  Yet, if we believe the often quoted 85% rule of thumb, I would need to save enough so that I would have to have no less than 42500.00 to live on in retirement.  Just doesn't make any sense.  In my experience, most rules of thumb that I often see published in the popular press assume that most people are going to spend at least as much as they make.  I am happy to know that there are probably thousands of us on the MMM site that have proven repeatedly that such information is just wrong.   

[Elderwood17]

These "experts" don't understand that what you earn does not have to be linked to what you spend, therefore they cannot imagine any world in which savings more than 25% or living on les than 85% of your income is possible.  Rubbish.  Pure rubbish.

[RFAAOATB]

These "experts" don't understand that what you earn does not have to be linked to what you spend, therefore they cannot imagine any world in which savings more than 25% or living on les than 85% of your income is possible.  Rubbish.  Pure rubbish.

It's possible but not desirable.  If you're not spending as much on your mortgage as your pre qual for, then your neighbors will probably be people who are living small because they have to, and you don't want to live next to the poors do you?  If you're going to end up living next to the poors anyway why bother going through all that education and training to get a high income to begin with?

I'm living next to the poors now because I'm recovering from a crash and am very risk averse.  I should find out what I pre qual for just to get an idea of where I should be living.

[arebelspy]

Previous discussion on this calculator:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/antimustachian-wall-of-shame-and-comedy/cnn-money-retirement-calculator-%29/

MMM post talking about it:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/21/silly-and-misleading-retirement-calculators/

[Kaspian]

I sort of break TD Bank's retirement calculator. I've calculated $750K in the next 10 years.  TD says I'll have something insane like $2.5 million and have $4k more in income than I need every month.  ...I'm pretty sure it was designed to give optimistic and encouraging news to potential mutual fund customers who have thus far saved nothing.

[sol]

Most of these tools are designed to keep the obedient drones working as long as possible. Just like public school. Just like social security and other pension schemes.  Just like the mortgage industry.  Just like our tax system.

Our titans of industry, our wealthiest elite, live lives of leisure because the rest of us continue to work so hard that they don't have to. It's no different than medieval serfdom, in some respects.  We've just found better ways of keeping the peasants from revolting.

[Scandium]

I sort of break TD Bank's retirement calculator. I've calculated $750K in the next 10 years.  TD says I'll have something insane like $2.5 million and have $4k more in income than I need every month.  ...I'm pretty sure it was designed to give optimistic and encouraging news to potential mutual fund customers who have thus far saved nothing.

I thought it was the opposite. The Schwab calculator I tried said I'd need to save more-more-more! to avoid starving. Obviously this money should be invested in their mutual funds (and hopefully never taken out again..)

[brooklynguy]

Just like our tax system.

I would say the opposite is true of our tax system; it almost unequivocally promotes leisure over labor.  But I suppose it then hides the incentive it created to stop working under its veil of laughable complexity, so there you go.

[RFAAOATB]

Most of these tools are designed to keep the obedient drones working as long as possible. Just like public school. Just like social security and other pension schemes.  Just like the mortgage industry.  Just like our tax system.

Our titans of industry, our wealthiest elite, live lives of leisure because the rest of us continue to work so hard that they don't have to. It's no different than medieval serfdom, in some respects.  We've just found better ways of keeping the peasants from revolting.

With everyone arguing about income inequality and racist policing, how close are the elites to throwing a few more bones to the masses and what form would these take?