As someone who writes about retirement all the time, I'm often motivated to do a personal checkup and see if I'm on track with my savings. And to that end, there's a host of free online tools available to run numbers with.
The problem? Many of them have major limitations. And they could end up causing you unnecessary stress on the road to building your nest egg.
Last week, I decided to use not one, not two, but 10 different online calculators to track my retirement savings progress. And the results were quite eye-opening.
One calculator I used told me that I'd wind up with a $5 million savings shortfall for retirement based on the data I entered. Another told me that I might have $19 million left in retirement plan in my 90s. Clearly, that's a pretty extreme range, and both scenarios are also pretty far-fetched.
Maurie Backman | USA Today