Author Topic: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?  (Read 5723 times)

rubybeth

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Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« on: June 22, 2015, 01:36:21 PM »
I got an e-mail about this today so logged in to take a look (I mostly ignore my Personal Capital stuff but was curious since it had the word "retirement" in the subject). It's pretty nice, though of course I'd want more variables (I tried entering a -$6,000 expenditure to replicate a paid off house at some point, but it wouldn't let me--I may make this suggestion--adjustable annual spending--for them to improve the tool). Have you tried it? Your thoughts?

cripzychiken

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2015, 03:07:36 PM »
Seems to basic and nothing special - just a tool for you to click on "how can I improve this" and they try to sell you investment services.  I tried to play with it and it didn't hold up well.  Nothing about the "5000 simulations" they run.  Not worth the time IMHO.  Nothing close to FIREcalc or even a decent excel sheet.

Cookie

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2015, 03:37:28 AM »
The youngest it will go for retirement is 40.

rubybeth

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2015, 06:28:23 AM »
The youngest it will go for retirement is 40.

Ah, I was impressed it let me choose 45, since most calculators won't let me go younger than 55. ;)

Perhaps I'll take their survey and make some suggestions--show more of the model that they are using, allow for younger ages and decreases in spending, etc. I think it's cool that they are offering this, it's nowhere near FIREcalc, that's for sure, but for most people, they would feel overwhelmed by that anyway.

madamwitty

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2015, 03:45:40 PM »
I was psyched when I saw they developed a retirement calculator, but I tried it out just now and find it generally worthless.

As previously mentioned, retirement only goes as early as 40 years old.

It projects your stash forward from this point, and pulls the trigger on retirement regardless of whether your stash is "big enough." Would like to see a dollar amount (or rather, withdrawal rate) trigger instead.

And yet, even if you push the retirement age forward far enough that all cases result in >4% WR, the success rate is still <90%. Probably because...

Tax rate on $30,000 is mind-blowingly high. It assumes $37,500 withdrawal to result in $30,000 net. That's effective tax rate of $20% (!!!) And yet...

It uses >9% average returns but doesn't include inflation?

It only shows the "median" and "worst case" cases, not the "best case". I guess trying not to get people's hopes up.

I do like that they included Social Security in the simulation.

I hope they work on it some more, it could end up being really cool.

rubybeth

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #5 on: June 24, 2015, 06:16:13 AM »
I'm thinking, with the right kind of feedback, it could become really powerful. Maybe I'll just send them the link to this thread! :)

cripzychiken

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #6 on: June 24, 2015, 07:00:08 AM »
I'm thinking, with the right kind of feedback, it could become really powerful. Maybe I'll just send them the link to this thread! :)

One of the key developers was actually active on a reddit thread when this went live and implemented 3-4 ideas that people asked for (like earlier retirement age).  So the good news is they are willing to listen if there is a good reason and it's a quick update.  I forget the exact board, but I'm thinking it was /r/personalfinance

rubybeth

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2015, 07:53:06 AM »
Okay, I logged in and left my feedback and some of the other ideas in this thread. :)

Midas

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2015, 11:13:35 AM »
It should also let you account for other income streams in ER like rental units.

20% default tax rate is dumb, it should be able to figure out that if you live on 30k you're at 0% until your taxable accounts/roth contributions run out and you go to the tax-deferred ones.

Kinda cool that it estimates your current annual expenses and savings rate, but I think for that to be accurate you probably need to have been using personal capital for at least a year.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 01:54:35 PM by Midas »

catccc

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #9 on: June 24, 2015, 11:35:42 AM »
It's okay.  I am counting on some fun income or part time work after I initially FIRE, and I accounted for it by saying I only needed to draw 20K for retirement, and then another 20K 10 years in, for 40K total in those later years.

It does let you put other income in, but it makes that income last the duration of your retirement.  Maybe that's okay if you own rentals, but if you are just doing fun/part-time work to let your stash grow a bit, not so much.

If you put in retirement income in doubles it for some reason?  I guess they assume both me and spouse are earning that?  IDK, I thought that was weird.

MDM

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2015, 11:48:18 AM »
See also http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Retirement_calculators_and_spending if you want a good overview of what else is out there.

swashbucklinstache

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Re: Anyone else tried Personal Capital's new retirement tool?
« Reply #11 on: June 25, 2015, 06:38:26 PM »
If you go to settings, then profile, you can change to an earlier retirement date - everything in the system that auto-calculates will be based on that age even though the individual screens won't let you pick < 40 there (mine is < 40 in settings and everywhere else). Also, you can 'edit' how long your additional spending/earning inputs will last. These may be new features since the original comments were posted but I figured I'd chime in. Overall I thought it was cool, but no cFiresim.