In This Chapter

Over the years, you’ll probably accumulate a variety of work retirement plans and IRA accounts. Keeping them organized and on track to building a nest egg that’s organized and well invested can become a bit of a challenge, but fortunately there are easy-to-use, and free, tools online to help.

Once you’ve organized your accounts, figuring out how much you need and how much to save is the next challenge. The Internet comes to the rescue to help with this. What used to take mathematically skilled financial planners hours using pencil and paper or software spreadsheets is now accessible to even the most math-phobic individual through online calculators.

However, online retirement planning tools are like many other computer calculators—if you enter worthless numbers in the form of unrealistic expectations and assumptions, you’ll get worthless numbers out. Knowing whether you have the right number when you’re done, and how those results affect your savings plan, is a critical part of building a secure retirement nest egg.