Computer
Programs
Free, Retirement Planner, Social Security Planner,
Return Calculator, Budgeting Planner, Allocation Control, Investment Manager,
Pre & Post Retirement Planner, Convert my IRA to Roth, TIPS vs. Savings I Bonds,
Replacement Budgeting, Evaluating Immediate Annuties
All of these programs require Microsoft Excel version 97 or later.
Some people report that they use OpenOffice 3.0, Sun Microsystem’s open source software successfully. Link: www.openoffice.us.com
|
Consumer
Reports rates as best of free planners |
Comprehensive
& eye opening. Try before buying. |
Free Strategic
Social Security Planner Up to 76% more income with alternative
strategies. |
|
Determines
your actual returns, not what otherwise reported. |
Easy
to use way to make an annual budget. |
Save
by earning interest, not paying interest. |
|
Evaluating Immediate Annuities Simplified
(Free) |
See
if this conversion to a tax free investment helps. (Free) |
See
which inflation-adjusted bonds are best for you. (Free) |
|
Helps
sort investments by different kinds of categories |
Automatically
shows how to allocate investments. |
What
is best way to solve the national debt problem? (Free) |
|
Read
more about these programs below. You
can download all of the above programs and try them out. Or you can order a CD with all of the
above. Click on Passwords
& CDs. |
||
Free Retirement Planner. Consumer Report (Feb. 2011) rated the Free Retirement Planner as in the top three of free Web based planners and better than the other two for pensions. The other two were AARP and T Rowe Price. Now, this program has added other valuable information and has been markedly improved with better graphics and more capability. Here are some of its features that help you do a much better job of planning than other programs:
It now shows what happens to the amount you can spend AFTER running out of savings. It adds budgeting programs for both pre and post retirement. The latter is tied to your plan and shows whether the total of your budgeted items works with your plan.
The program now has both pre-retirement and post-retirement budgeting programs as individual tabs. We also added a tab which has tabular data so that advanced users or professionals can make their own customized charts.
Link
to the Free Retirement Planner
There is an Optional Case tab that does some of the things included in the more comprehensive Pre and Post Retirement Planner from www.analyzenow.com. This tab graphically displays a comparison of the base case tab with the optional case tab which can have different inputs. So you can clearly see the difference between delaying Social Security, retiring later, saving more money, spending a different amount in retirement, etc.
The Optional Case tab allows you to input your percentage allocation of stocks and fixed income investments. Then it graphically displays what would have happened if you had retired in 1948 (the best year to retire in modern history) or 1965 (the worst year to retire in modern history). These utilize the actual returns for the securities and inflation in each year instead of some assumed values for retirement. You can also enter the costs of investing which often take away so much of retirees’ returns. (This tab requires a small charge because the program requires a license for the data used. Link to Passwords.)
Pre and Post Retirement Planner, a
comprehensive program for both pre and post retirement planning.
This program is geared toward those who are serious about planning for retirement and those who are already in retirement who want a more comprehensive plan than afforded by the vast majority of Web and professional plans as well as our own Free Retirement Planner. It offers the capability to analyze more complex investments, tax, income or cost events. It is good at analyzing multiple real estate investments and numerous special financial events at any age in your life. It has two cases running independently and simultaneously so that you can compare different alternatives. This is a great aid when making decisions that may affect the rest of your life. Further, it displays results from three separate scenarios: Your own scenario, a second scenario in an historically bad period and a third scenario from an historically good period. You can compare these last two with your own scenario to gain some insight whether your results are optimistic or conservative by historical economic measures. This is a great program for professionals or those who need to take a hard look at their finances, especially before making a major financial commitment—like retirement, for example.
Link
to Pre and Post Retirement Planner
“Should I convert my IRA to a Roth?” Free program helps answer.
An IRA conversion can be a benefit or a mistake, depending on what happens both in your future needs for money as well as what happens to inflation, tax rates and investment returns, among other things. Link to Should I convert my IRA to Roth? You can get the password for the Paid Addition by clicking on Passwords & CD’s.
Free Strategic Social Security Planner
This is a powerful and unique program that may allow you to increase Social Security payments by as much as 76%. The program allows you to compare the normal alternatives for taking Social Security with the little known File and Suspend and Suspend (only) alternatives. It also includes an accounting for pensions so that you can see both Social Security and pension income and survivor payments for each. It compares the additional savings you need to delay the start of Social Security as well as the other two alternatives. There is a direct comparison of the savings differences with the lifetime incomes from each alternative you might choose for a cost/benefit comparison.
Link
to the free Strategic Social Security Planner
King for a Day. Have some fun or frustration trying to
find a way to solve our national debt problem. You've fired the Chairman of the
Federal Reserve, got rid of the Secretary of the Treasury and bullied Congress
into doing whatever you want. So you can control taxes, government spending and
interest rates on the national debt. Simply click on the arrows in the program,
and the future economy is in your control. Get some insight into the things
that you may be facing in retirement. King for a Day link.
This remarkable program helps you with asset allocation and reallocation; getting information in the right categories for retirement planning; tabulates investments in different tax categories; and helps you understand how the ownership of your investments (joint, self, spouse) may affect your will and estate. It includes a ledger that allows you to see the totals of your withdrawals summed for different purposes. Also there is an investment history log that automatically calculates what your annual return was for previous years. Finally, it allows you to see your bond ladders and even estimates the current value of your savings bonds.
To download this free program: Netscape users left click on link and follow instructions. Internet Explorer users right click and then select "Save Target As" from the menu. Link to Investment Manager
This program helps you determine the
split (allocation) between stocks and fixed-income securities like bonds and
CDs. I have used this for 40 years with
great success because it has helped me to sell parts of my stock portfolio with
stocks got high as well as to buy stocks when stock values got too low. Unfortunately, most people do just the
opposite because they chase the markets and often buy when stocks are high and
sell when low. The program suggests how
much stock or fixed income you should sell or buy when the allocations get
outside of bounds established by your age.
To download this free program, click
on Link to
Allocation Control.
Free Program to Evaluate Immediate Annuities of Various Types
If you are thinking seriously about buying an immediate annuity or converting your employee savings plan to a pension, you can use this program to determine if that is in the best interest of you and, if married, your spouse. The program lets you compare a number of types of immediate annuities including ones with fixed payments, payments that increase a certain percentage each year, and ones that increase each year with inflation. You can further compare the results with how you might do without the immediate annuity. If you have a variable annuity, you might want to consider using a 1035 tax-free exchange to get into one of the new inflation adjusted immediate annuities. The program calculates results for both qualified and non qualified accounts considering ordinary income tax and taxes on returns.
To download this free program: Netscape users left click on link and follow instructions. Internet Explorer users right click and then select "Save Target As" from the menu
Link to Evaluating Immediate Annuities - Simplified
Link to Evaluating Immediate Annuities - Comprehensive
This Return Calculator program is a wonderful way to find out how your investments actually performed even when you had numerous deposits and/or withdrawals during the year--not how someone would like you to believe they performed. Many financial professionals have ways of hiding costs, fees, and kickbacks that may be a serious drain on your portfolio. If so, or if you are not doing as well as some of the common market indexes, you should probably make some changes. This download is FREE. Many users have found that they can do much better using index funds from low-cost mutual fund because they have discovered the severe penalties from some excessive professional fees and hidden costs in many mutual funds.
This small (only 20 KB) program for MSExcel 97 or later may be very valuable to you. For your free download: Netscape users left click on link and follow instructions. Internet Explorer users right click and then select "Save Target As" from the menu. Link to Return Calculator
Free Budgeting Planner
This easy-to-use program helps you establish a budget that fits within your
income, whether still working or already retired. It is Excel based, but you do
not have to know how to use Excel to use it.
To download the free version: Netscape users left click on link and follow
instructions. Internet Explorer users right click and then select "Save
Target As" from the menu. Link to Free Budgeting Planner
Free Program to compare TIPS with I Bonds
If you are contemplating buying some government inflation-adjusted bonds, you should compare TIPS with Savings I Bonds to see which is better at the present time. It's largely dependent of the relative value of fixed interest between the two as well as your expectations for future tax rates and inflation rates. Link to Compare TIPS with I Bonds
Free Program for Replacement Budgeting
By the time you get to retirement, you should not be buying items on credit. In fact, the earlier you start saving for items before you buy them, the larger will be your retirement resources. It just costs too much of precious resources to pay all of that interest instead of earning interest. Use this simple calculator to show how much you should be saving each year. Link to Replacement Budgeting program.