Retirement planner basic question

I have Quicken 2004 Deluxe. I've played around some with Retirement Planner, and I've run into a couple of things that really make me think I've got some basic misunderstandings about how it works.

What I'm wrestling with now is that due to a couple of (good) changes in my life, I'm going to have a bit more money to invest. If things work out right I've got perhaps 12 years till an early retirement. So I changed one investment to indicate that I would be adding $5,000 a year to it until I retire.

This did change my retirement plan max, but the effect was absolutely miniscule, about $8,000, far less than the extra amount I would be putting in.

I've gone back over the entry a bunch of times and I am putting it in correctly (e.g. it's a yearly deposit, not a one-time). So at this point I'm just trying to understand what's going on, because this has shaken any faith that I had that the Quicken retirement numbers are realistic.

I've run into some other oddities with Quicken retirement planner, so in addition to my specific question I'm curious about other people's results and how much faith they have in the final numbers.

Reply to
murdocj
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Check to see if this is flagged as an annual contribution and for how many years, or just a one time event.

Reply to
CWGilley

Yep, I thought of that and already checked it, it's an annual contribution. What I'm thinking is that I'm not properly adjusting my income, so Quicken is somehow deciding that I couldn't possibly be putting that much money away. Just for the hell of it, I tried setting my yearly investment to $50,000 and it still didn't have any effect.

Reply to
murdocj

It's a little hard to know what is going on since we don't have your data, but make sure the account is set up correctly and shows as available in the calculations. Look also for things like COLA adjustments, or inflation rates.

Try putting all the money in the account now and see if it effects the prediction. If you are retiring early, it may take more to go 30-40 years than you think If you wife is younger than you, it might also make a difference.

Anyway, the 2 possibilities I see are first, you are not entering the information correctly, or secondly, the prediction is not what you are expecting.

Clark

Reply to
Clark

I'm not sure what you mean by "retirement plan max".

If i understand correctly you are planning on contributing an additional $5,000 per year for 12 years, and then drawing against it for your estimated lifetime. If you can draw an extra $8,000 per year for the rest of your life based on a $60,000 investment isn't that pretty good?

Bernie

Reply to
Bernie

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