Free Programs

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. Now helps retirees too--and adds Social Security alternatives! (Consumer Reports rates this program as better than free retirement programs from Vanguard and Fidelity, the other two rated programs.)

This program helps you decide how much you should be saving for retirement or can spend if already retired, when you may be able to retire, how allocation of stocks, bonds and cash may affect retirement, and whether new savings should go into taxable, deferred-tax or tax-exempt investments. The Free Retirement Planner has a unique option that will give you an historical perspective that you won’t find in any other free planning program nor in any professional planning program. Link to the Free Retirement Planner. This is a great program to give to your adult children that are likely not saving enough. Click on Passwords & CD’s to get a password to implement the optional historical perspective addition. You can get a copy on a CD with all of the other free programs and the Pre and Post Retirement Planner by clicking on the same link.

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 Social Security Planner

This is a powerful program this is designed to help you make better Social Security decisions. None of us can predict the future, but we can make choices that will hold up better in different economic situations that may be part of our life in retirement. If married, the program has the option for the primary wage earner to “file and suspend” Social Security payments so the other spouse can get spousal benefits earlier. You only have to enter the “full-retirement-age” (about age 66) amount for Social Security. The program automatically calculates the spousal amounts and values for all other ages.

Here are some things you can do:

○ Compare benefits for starting Social Security at different ages for each spouse.

○ See if you have enough savings to delay the start of Social Security payments.

○ See how different retirement ages affect your decision when to start Social Security.

○ Compare the effects from different returns, inflation and tax rates.

○ See whether the “file and suspend” strategy will improve your situation.

○ If you believe that your spending will increase at a higher (or lower) rate than the CPI adjustment to Social Security, you can try different percentage increments.

○ Also, you can chose between using the common inflation-adjusted retirement spending for planning or planning based on making a new plan each year using the previous year’s investment balance and a new life-expectancy.

Link to the 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.

Investment Manager (Free).

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

It pays to save now (Free).

This simple program demonstrates the retirement income benefits from diverting some more of your current working wages to savings for Roths, 401(k)s, IRAs, taxable accounts, etc. Everyone should consider whether they really need all of the things that are fueling our record personal debts and national consumerism binge. Do you really need the latest electronics, software, cell phones, music recorders, high-speed internet, daily lattes, dining out, a large home, etc. if you can't afford a decent life-style in retirement?

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 It Pays To Save Now!

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

Free Return Calculator

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.