
Retirement Calculators for Engineers - yeahgoodok
https://www.nesteggly.com/
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magneticnorth
This is fun to play around with!

A UI request - in testing different scenarios, I want to delete & retype the
first digit or two only (what if I want 60000 per year? 75000 per year?) but
deleting only the first digit empties the whole text box and I have to type
out the zeros every time. Would be great to be able to edit only part of the
many long numbers instead of the whole thing.

~~~
yeahgoodok
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I recently implemented localization
of the number formatting and must have introduced this bug then. I'll fix it.

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AstroJetson
Broken on my iPad,I guess I work another 5 years? It gets to where it wants
more info and I watch the wheel of misfortune spin.

~~~
yeahgoodok
Ugh I'm sorry to hear that. I'm presently testing on Chrome, Firefox and
Safari on macOS and Windows with no issues. What browser are you using?

~~~
AstroJetson
Both Chrome and Safari on the iPad

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yeahgoodok
I'm not quite ready to open source this project just yet as I believe I
possess some trade secret-level intellectual property. I might be wrong about
that, so if anyone can find a calculator that can do what my calculators can
do then I'll gladly open it up. That being said this is a 100% client-side app
and I'm not collecting anyone's data (other than Google Analytics). I just
wanted to share this project here to solicit feedback from smart people and
help everyone get a clearer picture of their retirement.

~~~
andrewmcwatters
I don't see how you do anything differently than networthify, Personal
Capital's Retirement Planner, and everyone else.

In fact, you make the exact same mistakes they do, and more, which are
critical ones.

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yeahgoodok
Networthify is missing quite a few features. Namely social security, pensions,
annuities, taxes, capital depletion. It makes you internalize everything in
your head in real, after-tax terms as if inflation and taxes don't exist.
Nesteggly is better in this respect because it gives you a picture of your
financial future in actual dollar terms.

Personal Capital's Retirement Planner is quite a bit different too. For one,
it's a Monte Carlo simulator. Two, it assumes your retirement income will
remain constant for your _entire_ retirement. Third, to use their calculator
they make you sign up, link your accounts and endure the harassment of their
financial advisors.

~~~
andrewmcwatters
You might want to consider providing something that optionally allows you to
sign up.

There's a lot of details that are required for increasingly better
projections, and sometimes people taking a glance at what your software has to
offer might not necessarily have time during their lunch hour or on the
weekends to fill everything out.

Yes, Personal Capital targets sub-HNWIs, but realize they run a business, and
if they're targeting you, it's also a sign you're probably doing something
right.

~~~
yeahgoodok
Stop revealing the features of my premium product before it's released. ;)

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fsflyer
Darrow Kirkpatrick has a taxonomy of retirement calculators here:
[https://www.caniretireyet.com/the-best-retirement-
calculator...](https://www.caniretireyet.com/the-best-retirement-calculators/)

These calculators would be in the low fidelity category. He gives examples of
others that have higher fidelity.

Bogleheads has a nice list of calculators also:
[https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tools_and_calculators](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tools_and_calculators)
The Retiree Portfolio Model is a high fidelity spreadsheet tool that takes
some effort to use, but can be well worth it:
[https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=97352](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=97352)

One thing that low and medium fidelity calculators could do to provide value
is education. These calculators are mostly used by those that are years away
from retirement, who are probably younger and could use pointers to topics to
learn about that will apply to their situation going forward.

For example, a colleague asked me about backdoor Roth contributions recently
as he now makes too much to contribute directly. It turns out he had rolled a
401k into an IRA when the company we worked for was sold 12 years ago. I left
it in a 401k and told folks at the time about the rules that might make
backdoor Roth contributions uneconomical. I failed to educate properly at that
time, and now he's not able to do Roth contributions to save money in the
future.

Calculators that grow with you, remembering what you've entered and prompting
for only the information needed for the next decision point are also a good
idea. If you are targeting engineers, you'll likely grow into a very high
fidelity calculator towards retirement, as engineers tend to like to fully
understand the nuances of the situation. It may be that your tool creates a
spreadsheet that can be downloaded and edited to handle the last 5-10% of the
special nuances for that particular individual.

Making data input easier for users to think about is also a good idea. The
recently featured on Hacker news
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23069276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23069276)
calculator has a place where you can enter special future spending. Having a
page that you enter your child's age or rough birthday (even future) could
make prompting for uneven income and spending like not working, child care,
sports and college easier for folks to plan for and enter.

There are many cliffs in the tax code for example. Frugal professor had an old
post that shows some of the cliffs before the 2018 tax code changes:

[https://frugalprofessor.com/federal-income-tax-calculator-
to...](https://frugalprofessor.com/federal-income-tax-calculator-tool/)

I'd like to see calculators that determine which cliffs folks are likely to be
near and educate them about the issues.

The ACA health care subsidy cliff is another important one. Earn $1 too much
and your health care costs go from <$100 to $1000+ per month for early
retirees.

Getting a balance between tax deferred (traditional IRA, 401k, etc.), tax free
(Roth) and taxable savings is also important. You want to be able to withdraw
savings from each of these in retirement in a balanced way.
[https://www.gocurrycracker.com/6-years-of-nearly-income-
tax-...](https://www.gocurrycracker.com/6-years-of-nearly-income-tax-free-
living/) has a nice rundown of what they do to minimize taxes.

Why am I talking about taxes so much? The only thing you control in your
retirement is the contributions and withdrawals from the various accounts. The
market conditions control the returns. Being smart about how you balance your
actions to minimize tax drag can be a big boost towards retirement.

Other decisions can also have a big effect your retirement spending. Are you
planning on retiring in a state that taxes your social security benefits and
capital gains? How much sooner could you retire moving to a state that doesn't
tax these?

~~~
yeahgoodok
It's funny you mention FI Calc. We're actually collaborating together to
implement my strategy into his calculator. Here's the PR:

[https://github.com/jamesplease/fi-
calc/pull/197](https://github.com/jamesplease/fi-calc/pull/197)

I totally understand where you're coming from with optimizing for taxes, tax
cliffs, etc. Tax law is just so immensely nuanced and fluid. I mean, every
_state_ has their own set of crazy rules and these rules change all the time.
Even the popular backdoor Roth isn't a sure thing:

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-you-may-want-
to-...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-you-may-want-to-
reconsider-doing-that-backdoor-roth-ira-conversion-2019-04-17)

My calculator takes the Occam's Razor approach to taxes and uses a generic
"tax burden" parameter in the assumptions. Someone as savvy as you are would
surely be able to keep that parameter lower than others. For most people
trying to minimize their tax burden, I think they'd be better served by a
financial professional than a calculator. Just my $0.02.

~~~
andrewmcwatters
If you're not implementing basic tax calculations, it's child's play. Too many
uneducated kids don't realize you can't retire early with a 401(k).

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harshalizee
The site does not work on mobile iOS safari

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yeahgoodok
I'm testing the site right now on my girlfriend's iPhone 7, iOS 13.3.1,
Safari. All systems are go. Can you tell me more about your phone?

