These days, you can find an app for just about every aspect of life, whether useful or just a fun time-waster. Furthermore, you can find apps that benefit just about every age group, from young children to people of retirement age.
Speaking of retirement, did you know that you those apps could even help stack the deck in your favor for retiring in a very well off situation? Having an app handy for financial tasks such as retirement savings will make it easier for you to make plans whenever it’s convenient, especially since many of these kinds of apps will give store and give easy access to your information.
Here are five apps that make retirement planning easier and more lucrative.
Retirement Calculator
Ask ten different experts how much money you need for a comfortable retirement (not just scraping by, mind you!), and you’ll get ten different answers. It’s the retirement equivalent of asking job-seeking experts about what you should include in a resume. See? Different answers provided at both ends of your employment tenure!
This free retirement calculator lets you plug in variables such as projected retirement age, home value, insurance/pensions, assets and income, and expenses and debt. By using this calculator you can see your financial picture spread out in front of you, and give you an idea of what you have to shoot for. This valuable tool helps you figure out how long your savings will last, affordability of health care, and whether or not you can maintain your quality of life.
iMaximize Social Security
Here’s a thing to remember about social security; if you are earning any money after you retire, it may affect your Social Security benefits, even to the point of where you have to return money! This calculator helps you maximize your Social Security benefits, tailored to your unique situation. Granted, when people talk about retiring rich, Social Security payments don’t usually figure into the conversation, but this particular benefit needs to be taken into account. It’s available for online, iOS, and Android, and the basic version is free.
Vanguard Retirement Nest Egg Calculator
Do you have some sort of investment portfolio? By entering six variables into this free online planner, including how much of your portfolio is cash, bonds, and stocks, how long you want it to last, how much you spend from it, and its current balance, you can find out if your nest egg will last for the terms you dictated. This is a great app for those people wise enough to have started investing for their long-term future.
Smart Money Retirement Planner
This is a free, simple and straightforward online planner that lets you forecast how much money you will have in your savings when you’re ready to retire. You input your age, retirement age, current salary, annual savings, and other data, and you’re set.
Retirement Planner
If you have an IRA or a 401K, you need a free app like this one. This Android app helps you compare between different investment plans such as traditional IRA, 401K, and Roth 401K. Track how much your employer contributions are adding up, as well as how much you’re saving due to spending reductions. You can also forecast whether your current investment plan will result in a surplus or a shortfall.
That’s a good sample to get you on your way to retiring in comfort. While you’re planning for the future, you may want to read “Health Insurance Apps for iOS and Android” and get a good grasp on health insurance. It’s never too soon to look into saving money in what can be a potentially expensive part of life.