Saving for retirement takes a lot of diligence, consistency, and hard work in order to ensure that you can live comfortably after leaving the workforce. Luckily, there are several free or low-cost tools that can help you manage your retirement savings and make sure that you’re staying on track.
Personal Capital
Personal Capital is one of the most robust tools out there for tracking and optimizing your retirement savings. It is a free tool that allows you to sync all of your investment and financial accounts, as well as allows you to input other assets – which offers a great birds-eye view of your overall financial health. Most importantly, it allows you to simulate how certain investment strategies or life events (inheritance, real estate purchases, tax obligations, etc.) will impact your retirement savings.
You Need a Budget
A great Pre and Post retirement tool is ‘You Need a Budget’. This budgeting app allows you to create a sustainable budget that will help you maximize your Pre-retirement savings, while serving as a powerful money management tool Post-retirement. The app also offers a ton of great resources, videos, and articles on maintaining healthy financial habits.
MyPlan Snapshot
MyPlan Snapshot is a retirement planning tool offered by Fidelity Investments (although you don’t need a Fidelity Brokerage Account to use the tool). The tool allows you to input your current savings, how much you save each month, along with your investments and will tell you how ‘On Track’ you are for retirement. Best of all, the app doesn’t ask for your name or any personally identifiable information, so it is completely anonymous and secure.