Tools - Calculators

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]

We found the following calculators very useful in setting goals for our investments in our portfolios. They are as follows:

• Bankrate's Investment Goal Calculator - Investments can be small cap, large cap, corp bonds, govt bonds and treasury bills.
• Bankrate's Simple Retirement Calculator - No frills, simple calculator to see how you much you need to retire.
• Bankrate's Simple 401(k) Calculator - Factors in employer's contribution to show you how much you will have when you retire.
• Bankrate's Loan Payment Calculator - The feature to see how your "loan's paid-off" date changes by putting in extra payments is really helpful to clear your debts.
• Bankrate's Life Insurance Calculator - It helps you estimate how much life insurance you will require; it factors in the needs for your income to be replaced till your responsibilities are met, any big expenses (like buying a car, house, etc), your burial expenses, and how much money your family will need for annually to support them till your unfinished tasks are completed. They assume the inflation rate as 2.5% which is pretty low compared to the standard of 4.0% used in more realistic calculators.
• Bankrate's Calculators - Several different types of simple calculators for Mortgage, Auto, Home Equity, Investment, and Credit Card Payments.

But we still found FIRECalc as the champion for realistic retirement planning. It matches the performance of your portfolio with past data (of the stock market) from 100 years to see how you will fare with your nest eggs and shows the percentage of success or failure of the portfolio in supporting you throughout your retirement period.

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