Treat those retirement calculators with a grain of salt.
The next time a calculator tells you that you're on track for a timely retirement, take those results with a heaping spoonful of salt. A recent analysis of a dozen free retirement planning calculators from different financial services firms found wildly varying projections on how much income you'll need once you've stopped working. Corporate Insight, a New York-based research and consulting firm, drafted a hypothetical profile of Art Vandelay (apologies to Seinfeld), a 40-year-old architect who is single, earns a $100,000 salary and has saved $100,000 in his 401(k) savings plan. Corporate Insight analyzes industry trends and customer behaviors for financial services companies. Based on the data and other inputs, the calculators gave a wide range of monthly retirement income projections, from $6,013 to $3,772. The magnitude of the savings shortfall also varied wildly. For example, the Retirement Wellness Planner from Principal Financial estimated that the sa...