What’s the most important thing you can do for your retirement? Plan early.

UPAL offers a comprehensive selection of retirement plans and services to help you build a solid future. To help you estimate how much savings you’ll need for your retirement, we offer our members this handy Retirement Calculator.

If you are married, you and your spouse should each fill out your a worksheet, taking your marital status into account when entering your Social Security benefit in number 2 below.

1. How much annual income will you want in retirement? (Figure at least 70 of your current annual gross income to maintain your current standard of living.)

Enter your current age

Enter the age at which you plan to retire

Enter your current annual gross income

Enter the percentage of your current annual gross income you want to set as your goal

Tips to help you select a goal:

• 70 to 80 - You’ll need to pay for the basics in retirement, but you won't have to pay many medical expenses. You're planning for a comfortable retirement without much travel. You are older and/or in your prime earning years.

• 80 to 90 - You will need to pay for some medical costs above Medicare, which on average covers about 55. You plan to take some small trips, and you know you’ll need to continue saving some money.

• 100 to 120 - You will need to cover all costs above Medicare. You are very young and/or your prime earning years are ahead of you. You would like a retirement lifestyle that is more than comfortable. You need to save for the possibility of long-term care, and your family history indicates you might live well into your 90s.

2. Enter the income you expect to receive annually from:

• Social Security
  If you make under $25,000, enter $8,000; between $25,000 - $40,000, enter $12,000; over $40,000, enter $14,500 (For married couples - the lower earning spouse should enter either his/her own benefit based on income OR 50 of the higher earning spouse's benefit, whichever is higher.)
  For a more personalized estimate, uncheck the "Automatic" checkbox and enter the appropriate benefit figure from your Social Security statement from the Social Security Administration (1-800-772-1213, www.ssa.gov).
  

Automatic

• Traditional Employer Pension -- a plan that pays a set dollar amount for life, where the dollar amount depends on salary and years of service (in today's dollars)

• Part-time income

• Other

This is how much you need to make up for each retirement year:

Now you want an estimate for how much money you will need in the bank the day you retire. The figure below is reached using a simple formula based on the following assumptions: 1) you'll live to age 87; 2) you'll begin to receive income from Social Security at age 65. If you anticipate living longer than age 87, you'll want to consider using a higher percentage of your current annual gross income as a goal on line 1. We calculate annual compound interest based on the rate below. We even give you an opportunity to toy with the esitmated inflation rate.

Enter your expected annual average return on your investment

Enter the estimated annual inflation rate

3. This is the amount you will need to have in the bank the day you retire.

4. This is the amount of extra savings you must have to account for the lack of Social Security income from your retirement age until the age when Social Security begins payout (currently age 65). If you indicated you will retire at age 65 or later, or if you entered 0 as your Social Security benefit on line 2, this will remain 0.

5. Enter your savings to date (include money accumulated in a 401(K), IRA, or similar retirement plan as well as money accumulated in savings accounts, savings bonds, certificates of deposit, and other savings vehicles).

This is the estimated value of your savings to date (from line 5 above) at the day you retire.

Total additional savings needed at retirement:

This figure may seem large. The good news is that this figure doesn’t take into account the compounded interest you will accumulate on your savings (and its interest).

6. This is the ANNUAL amount you'll need to save to reach your goal.

Retirement Planning doesn’t have to be painful. UPAL is here to help answer your questions and make the process easy.