When we start working and and saving towards our retirement, most don’t pay much attention to what is being offered, what will be required at the time of retirement or how much we need in order to retire.

Your financial adviser will typically show you hypothetical graphs of what you need based on your current situation, where you want to be at retirement age and “if” the returns are achieved, how much you need to start investing today.

With the retirement Annuity Calculator , you can make your own scenarios to see how far you are behind in your investment planning or how ahead you are (if there is such a thing)

You can perform the following easy calculations on the Retirement Annuity Calculator

1. Determine how long a lump sum will last over a fixed period at an assumed interest rate

For example: A lump sum of R1 million at retirement will give you R8300 approx/month over a 20 year period at an growth rate of 8%/annum

2. Determine how much you need at retirement age to draw a fixed amount every year.

For Example: To withdraw R25,000/month for 20 years at a growth rate of 8.00%/annum, you would need a lump sum of R3,008,783.01

3. Calculate how long a lump sum will last if you draw Rx/month at a given growth rate

For Example: An annuity with a lump sum of R1,000,000 and a growth rate of 8.00% and payout of R8,000/month, would last for 22.06 years.

4. Determine what growth rate you need with a fixed amount in order to withdraw Rx/month for Xyears

For Example: To withdraw R20,000/month for 20 years with a starting principal of R1,000,000, you would need to achieve a growth rate of 24.2859519108% per annum.

These types of calculations are not only enlightening, giving you a very good idea of what you need to invest to achieve the type of retirement you dream of but also enable you to quickly and easily check what people are telling you to be true.

We hear cases of people in their retirement who get involved in schemes that offer crazy returns and lose it all or a huge part of their retirement because they have come to realise that they are not going to be able to afford to continue living as they are until they die which results in them taking on far too much risk for that stage of life, or simply because they are greedy.

Take some to to play around with the retirement annuity calculator and if you would like any financial/insurance advice, we will put you in touch with a licensed financial service provider.