All calculators are downloadable Excel spreadsheets that allow you to save and amend your own personal data. With all the spreadsheets, enter your personal data in the purple coloured cells.
KiwiSaver calculator (How much will I have at retirement?)
This calculator tells you how much you will have when you stop your KiwiSaver contributions (if prior to age 65), at age 65, and at time of withdrawal (if later than 65).
You can adjust the age you stop contributions, the age you make your first withdrawal and your employee contribution amounts.
In addition, you can enter any salary changes you like. Most calculators only allow for inflation or percentage adjusted increases and decreases in income. Here you can enter any amounts you wish in cells B13 to B62. The calculator will automatically calculate your employee, employer and government contributions based on your inputs. If you choose to retire before age 65, the calculator assumes you will no longer receive government tax credits. If you retire after age 65, the calculator assumes you will continue to contribute towards KiwiSaver, as will your employer (some employers don’t after the age of 65).
You can also adjust your investment return assumptions. For example, when close to buying a house with your KiwiSaver money or close to retirement, you may wish to lower your return assumptions. Conversely, when decades from retirement you may go with a higher assumption assuming you are invested appropriately. Finally, there is an option to add any one off contributions or withdrawals you may make in any given year.
As with any investment and retirement planning, there are always assumptions that are likely to not play out in reality. Changes to assumptions can greatly impact the final results so don’t put too much weight into the results. Yes, use them as a guideline and a starting point to make changes. But don’t rely on them. Remain flexible and regularly review your situation.
The ultimate retirement calculator for kiwis (including Kiwisaver)
This is the ultimate calculator because it does everything the others do and more. It reflects modern retirement where people are supplementing their savings with income or providing one off early inheritances to children. This calculator allows for planning for one off or ongoing sources of income, as well as one off outside of budget spending. It also includes your KiwiSaver balance at retirement. This allows for sophisticated scenario analysis that other retirement calculators are lacking.
It’s also crucial to consider KiwiSaver investments when retiring. Especially if you are retiring early and have a significant KiwiSaver balance. You need to ensure you have enough in your non KiwiSaver savings from the age of early retirement and access to KiwiSaver funds. This calculator can help you see how much you are likely to have for retirement from both your KiwiSaver and non KiwiSaver savings.
This calculator is great as it allows you to make certain assumptions that other calculators don’t. An extra level of detail. Retirement calculators also make the difficult easy. Calculating the numbers based on assumptions is not for everybody. Calculators make the math easy. That is their redeeming feature.
However, don’t be deluded by this mathematical precision. By the mere fact that calculators rely on assumptions, the numbers provided will be wrong. That is because our assumptions will be wrong. We can’t be right about everything we assume ahead of time. Our spending, income, inflation, retirement date, and investment returns will all likely be different than assumed.
It is good practice to be pessimistic with your assumptions. For example, put your spending and inflation rate slightly higher than expected, your income and investment returns less than expected, and your expected retirement earlier than expected. By grouping these pessimistic assumptions together you bring some margin of safety to your planning should things not play out as you thought.
Then you can enter your most optimistic assumptions. Lower spending and inflation, higher income and investment returns.
This is your likely range of outcomes and is much more valuable than one number.
Once this is complete, don’t just set and forget either. As the years go by, you will have more up to date information, making the old assumptions more irrelevant. You can make new assumptions based on more up to date information, and the closer you are to retirement, the closer you will be to hitting the target.
So do use the calculator to make the math of calculating your retirement needs easy. But don’t rely on it as an absolute. Make regular reviews and update the information based on changes to your assumptions.
The ultimate retirement calculator (Not including KiwiSaver)
Same as the calculator above, except it doesn’t include KiwiSaver savings. This calculator requires significantly less inputs if you don’t want to include your KiwiSaver savings.
Monte Carlo retirement withdrawal calculator
The previous three retirement calculators have helped with seeing how much you MAY have at retirement. This calculator helps you determine if that amount is enough.
The Monte Carlo calculator allows you to enter how much you have (or are expecting to have) at retirement, along with a range of other assumptions. There is the standard stuff such as age, investment returns and inflation rate, but you can also add in changes to your annual spending (such as higher spending early in retirement), as well as any one off lump sum income or spending you expect.
It then chews out 1,000 outcomes based on the inputs you use.
A summary of results can be seen at the top of the page including the best result, worst result, median result, average result, as well as any percentile result of your choosing. For example, you can enter any percentage in cells F8 to F10 and see how many instances below that percentage amount of time you have a certain amount of savings left.
Monte Carlo simulations like this are much better than a calculator that provides one definitive amount based on averages. Here you get to see the wide range of outcomes and can decide on the probability that you are most comfortable with.
How much do I need to retire? (Die with zero) calculator
Also known as the ‘die with zero’ calculator. A popular book written by Bill Perkins encouraging people to live their best lives and spend their money.
Although I am all for enjoying life, I don’t whole heartedly agree with this approach. I would prefer you use the Monte Carlo calculator above and use the ‘median’ number as your guideline of how much you may need. Sometimes life happens and with it, unexpected results. Unexpected expenses. Unexpected loss of income. Unexpected life expectancy, and so on.
However, people still like to know how much they would need to retire and end up with close to zero dollars.
This is the calculator that will help you come up with your number. The results will also tell you how short of the target you are (if at all), and how much you may need to save per month from now until retirement to ‘catch up’.
Just be cautious using the number and have a read of the spiel underneath the ultimate retirement calculator for the pitfalls of relying too much on a retirement calculator.
Reverse mortgage calculator
This calculator is one of a kind. No other free calculator goes into the level of detail you see here.
With just a few quick inputs, you will immediately see how much your reverse mortgage loan will be at various ages in the future. In addition to that, you will see how much your house will be worth (after payment of the reverse mortgage) at various ages and also with different rates of house price increase assumptions.
For more detail on reverse mortgages, have a read of this comprehensive article.
Lifetime home retirement income
Like a reverse mortgage, Lifetime home is a product that uses the equity in your home to provide an income in retirement. However, rather than getting a mortgage, you sell a portion of the equity your home. You can read more about this alternative product to a reverse mortgage here.
This is a calculator that will inform you how much your house equity may be worth each year if using this product, how much your capital gains may be, and how much of your annual spend that this product will provide for.
You can compare the results here with the results of using a reverse mortgage and see which option you may be more comfortable with.
You can have a read of my initial thoughts on the product here.
An independent financial adviser, such as myself, can help you make heads or tails of these decisions.
For personalised advice on your retirement planning needs, then get in touch for a no obligations chat to see how we may be able to add value for you.