Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
Some people avoid thinking about saving for retirement, but a retirement calculator can make it easier to plan for your future. The earlier you begin saving for retirement, the better. But financial experts say that individuals in their 50s and 60s can save a substantial amount in a retirement fund even if they have little or no savings to start.
Budget basics
Before you can use a retirement calculator to estimate how much you need to save to provide the income you will need during retirement, it’s best to calculate your current budget. You need to know where your income is going, how much you are investing in your retirement and an average rate of return on those investments. Think carefully about when you would like to retire and how long you expect to be retired.
Next, consider your anticipated income needs during your retirement years. While some retirees find their budget shrinks during retirement, others say that, at least initially, they spend more on leisure activities and travel. As they age, the financial needs of retirees shift.
You may be planning on paying off your mortgage in full before retirement, but don’t forget you will still need to pay property taxes and homeowners insurance and perhaps a homeowners association fee. An accurate budget, both current and estimated, will help improve the accuracy of your retirement planning calculation.
Estimating your savings
How much you should be saving towards retirement depends in part on your age, which the retirement calculator takes into account. Financial planners recommend that you contribute the maximum you can to your 401(k) retirement account — or at least enough to get all of the company match if your employer matches contributions. If you are age 50 or older, you can make a “catch-up” contribution of an additional $5,500 to an IRA beyond the regular limit.
A retirement calculator works only as well as the numbers you put into it, so do your best to estimate how long you will be retired to determine your income needs.
Share