Retirement Answer Man Why Even the Best Retirement Calculator is Wrong
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Mar 25, 2026 They dig into why Monte Carlo retirement tools can give misleading confidence and what those success rates actually measure. They contrast complicated vs complex problems and warn against substituting software for judgment. They list what planning tools miss, the many hidden assumptions, and how to read outcome distributions and timing of failures. They offer practical best practices for using calculators as guides, not decision-makers.
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Balance Overspending Risk With Underspending Regret
- Beware both overspending early (risking future ruin) and underspending (missing life); define what trade-off you prefer.
- Roger Whitney stresses the severity: running out later or missing go-go years are both costly outcomes.
Tiny Assumption Tweaks Multiply Over Time
- Small assumption changes interact multiplicatively across decades, creating large swings in outcomes.
- Roger Whitney calls these tweaks 'butterfly wings'—a 0.1% return change can materially alter a 30-year plan.
Model Spending Components Precisely
- Enter spending precisely: separate fixed items (like a 20-year mortgage) from inflation-adjusted living costs.
- Roger Whitney shows a $120k example where $20k mortgage treated as inflation-adjusted can wrongly prevent retirement.