Am I on track for retirement?

Q – How do I really know if I’m behind in saving for retirement without having to pay a financial planner?

A – There are numerous free retirement calculators available on the web and available through financial service providers such as Fidelity, Charles Schwab, etc. If you go that route, I recommend trying out a couple of them to get an overall feel of what it takes to build a savings plan for you. [You can also buy my book which provides a downloadable retirement planner for use with Excel or the free OpenOffice application].

Be careful though with concluding you’re behind. You might be younger with your whole career ahead of you so it’s easier to adjust and leverage time. If you’re older you might need to do more work to see what options you have to catch up. But, you also have to take into account investment returns which in recent years which may be several percent higher than their long-term averages. [Yes, the stock market in July 2025 is a good bit above its long-term fair value—a warning to lower future expectations.]

You’re asking the right question – how do you know? Next, take the initiative to find out your answer. Doing this on your own is not that difficult, you don’t need to hire a financial planner, but it does require an understanding of what are reasonable assumptions. You can’t assume trying to invest for a high return fixes your little amount of savings when the opposite could happen – below average returns for a decade. The accuracy of the result improves the more you learn about money and get your plan on track. As I like to remind my readers – If you don’t act nothing will change. Good luck.