Talk:Retirement calculators and spending

Purpose of Article
--ThePrune 22:23, 9 September 2011 (EDT) I wrote this article to implement suggestions by LadyGeek and Blbarnitz that all references to specific retirement spending models being used in retirement calculators should be gathered together in a common table. In preparing the table I decided to also include other useful information, especially the type of calculation used to extrapolate future investment returns. With just this little bit of extra work the resulting table are immensely more useful.

I decided to incorporate as footnotes additional information about how the calculator implemented certain spending models, or to explain how to access that model if it was not readily apparent (i.e. I had to hunt around in the calculator documentation to discover the technique).

I will leave it to LadyGeek and Blbarnitz to decide how to link this article back to the Tools and Calculators article.

The formatting needs improvement, so Go To It!


 * I tweaked the table by slightly expanding the abbreviated table headings in the Spending Model as Retirement Progresses sub heading for easier comprehension, and I also made these titles into internal wiki links to the original wiki page subheading discussions. --Blbarnitz 23:48, 9 September 2011 (EDT)

I moved the forum discussions and calculator specific notes to this article. Retirement calculators now links back to here. --LadyGeek 12:20, 10 September 2011 (EDT)


 * I renamed the abbreviations, as it was difficult to interpret within the table. As for table width, I'm using a widescreen monitor. It's much easier to read if the table doesn't span across the entire page width. I reduced the maximum table width and indented from the left edge. The individual column width percentages were kept as-is; it allows both tables to align with each other. If this doesn't look good, then change the table width back to 90%.


 * Note: MS Word likes to change the character set for single and double quotes, which is ignored (format not implemented) by the wikitext interpreter. The ending double quote for: "center” is not the same as: "center" (the trailing quote is a different character). Also for single quotes: X’‘‘ is not the same as X'''


 * This was not in the original table data. I encountered this problem when I was using MS Word to edit the tables, make global changes, then paste back into the web browser. Tip: Use Notepad or equivalent.

--LadyGeek 17:42, 10 September 2011 (EDT)

--ThePrune 21:55, 10 September 2011 (EDT) I changed table width back to 90%. I like to test appearance on both laptop screen and on a large monitor. At width=60% on a laptop the table rows are way too tall; many calculator names require 3 rows! At width=90% table look much better on a laptop screen, and is still OK on a large monitor.

Good point. I check standard aspect ratio by changing the browser size, but never dropped the resolution (1900 x 1200). The laptop is widescreen, but lower resolution (1366 x 768). I have a laptop, but did not remember to check these changes. The laptop is why I stay with clip-art images, they're optimum for low resolution displays. --LadyGeek 22:36, 10 September 2011 (EDT)

Additions Needed
--ThePrune 22:38, 9 September 2011 (EDT) There are a lot more Purchased Retirement Calculators that need to be added into that Table and categorized according to Calculation type(s) and retirement spending model used. Everything takes time, though....

Calculators
The Retirement calculators links are duplicated in this article except for one. There's not much detail. Is it worth retaining? I don't know how to categorize it.


 * Retirement Planner - Bloomberg

--LadyGeek 12:19, 10 September 2011 (EDT)


 * --ThePrune 12:27, 10 September 2011 (EDT) The Bloomberg "Retirement Calculator" isn't really a retirement calculator any more! The text makes it sound like it should be, but all the calculator itself does is extrapolate investment growth from the present to a future retirement year.  Not very useful.  So I omitted it from my Tables and recommend that you just ignore it in the Tools and Calculators article also.