Where can I get a retirement planning spreadsheet?? (2024)

enthusiasticsaver Posts: 15,253

30 July 2017 at 4:28PM

I just set up my own and I think most other people probably do the same. I have never heard of a spreadsheet which projected income automatically.

What I did about 10 years ago was start up a spreadsheet with two sheets on it. On one I put all our outgoings so I knew what number we were aiming for - ie income in retirement.

On the other I put all our future sources of income for the first 10 years after retirement as we are retiring early at 58 but state pensions do not kick in until we are 66. I used the pension statements, the government online state pension quoting tool and online benefit projections for our various schemes and update it yearly. This gives an idea of what we will receive. The idea is to get it to match obviously and if there looks as if there will be a shortfall we agreed on what to do to increase the benefits projections. In our case we invested more in my name in SIPPs and stocks and shares ISAs and paid more into my husbands pension as he was the higher tax payer.

You should be able to get information from your pension provider as to what they will pay out at retirement. Do you get annual statements?

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30 July 2017 at 6:08PM

Thanks @enthusiasticsaver. I will have a look at those headings and see if we can put something together ourselves.

We do get an annual statement but it doesn't seem to give us much useful info. I'm not sure how we calculate how much it would be if we retired at different ages to the one the statement suggests. And I'm also not sure how we can tell what difference paying in a different % would make. I was hoping there may be a spreadsheet that would let us play around with these variables if we knew a few key bits of info?

30 July 2017 at 6:58PM

I built my own.

I downloaded a couple of years of bank statements, so have an accurate record of spend.

I track my pensions and savings on a regular basis, so have a record of what I should receive.

The hard part is working out what to allow for inflation. Some of my pensions have some inflation protection, which gives some comfort.

skid112 Posts: 373

31 July 2017 at 6:23AM

you could try retire easy, an online retirement planning tool. https://www.retireeasy.co.uk/lifeplan/creation/pensions/10

enthusiasticsaver Posts: 15,253

31 July 2017 at 7:05AM

Rowbo wrote: »

Thanks @enthusiasticsaver. I will have a look at those headings and see if we can put something together ourselves.

We do get an annual statement but it doesn't seem to give us much useful info. I'm not sure how we calculate how much it would be if we retired at different ages to the one the statement suggests. And I'm also not sure how we can tell what difference paying in a different % would make. I was hoping there may be a spreadsheet that would let us play around with these variables if we knew a few key bits of info?

It is unlikely that a spreadsheet would do that because each pension scheme is different and the benefits calculated differently. The best people to give you the information you need are your pension administrators.

My scheme is the LGPS which obviously is a large scheme so there are online calculators which tell you what you would get if you retired at a different age to the normal retirement date. Even my pension administrators though would have to produce personal quotes for putting more in. Read up on terms and conditions of your pension and it may give you an idea. Do you have a final salary scheme (DB) or investment contribution (DC)? If it is DC there is no way it can be projected definitively. They would just give you an idea based on low, medium or high growth. That gives you an idea though of what it will be worth in say 10 years time. An online projection tool would do that so maybe the retire easy spreadsheet.

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Marine_life Posts: 1,059

31 July 2017 at 7:09AM

If your husband is good at spreadsheets it should be relatively easy to build your own.

I have three sheets:

1. Investments - to track purchases, income (i.e. interest and / or dividends) and investment performance.
2. Expenses including current actual and projected in retirement.
3. A summary which maps your draw down effectively showing your expected savings rate up to retirement and then your draw down thereafter. Remember in this sheet you need to include taxation.

So, then you need to decide your key assumptions, namely:
- Inflation
- Investment return
- Tax
To some extent this will depend on:
- your investment mix
- your attitude to risk
- how catious you want to be.

I have tended to be quite cautious and for a long time I had my net investment return (i.e. inflation less income) at 0% - I now have it at 1%.

Once you've got all that mapped you should be able to see a) When you can retire b) When you will run out of money (!!hopefully never!!)

31 July 2017 at 4:30PM

Marine_life wrote: »

If your husband is good at spreadsheets it should be relatively easy to build your own.

I have three sheets:

1. Investments - to track purchases, income (i.e. interest and / or dividends) and investment performance.
2. Expenses including current actual and projected in retirement.
3. A summary which maps your draw down effectively showing your expected savings rate up to retirement and then your draw down thereafter. Remember in this sheet you need to include taxation.

So, then you need to decide your key assumptions, namely:
- Inflation
- Investment return
- Tax
To some extent this will depend on:
- your investment mix
- your attitude to risk
- how catious you want to be.

I have tended to be quite cautious and for a long time I had my net investment return (i.e. inflation less income) at 0% - I now have it at 1%.

Once you've got all that mapped you should be able to see a) When you can retire b) When you will run out of money (!!hopefully never!!)

Thank you so much for your detailed reply! We will get on the spreadsheet case asap!

31 July 2017 at 4:32PM

skid112 wrote: »

you could try retire easy, an online retirement planning tool. https://www.retireeasy.co.uk/lifeplan/creation/pensions/10

Oooh excellent, I will have a good look at this. Thank you.

madeinireland_2 Posts: 381 Forumite

31 July 2017 at 5:37PM

Rowbo wrote: »

Oooh excellent, I will have a good look at this. Thank you.

I'd suggest retireeasy as well...

2 August 2017 at 6:25PM

Hi Robo

Defo take a look at retireeasy - we signed up for their premium tool as we wanted to compare various scenarios and it really is a great tool.