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Do You Know Your “R-Score?”
By JLP | October 25, 2006
Nationwide, the sponsor of the RetirAbility Check, is a current advertiser on AllFinancialMatters.
Nationwide has developed a new software program that will allow people to get a sense of where they are in their ability to retire. The program is called RetirAbility Check. Although I did find the exercise relatively easy to go through, I thought the “cute” characters were annoying. I turned the sound off but they still stood there and made faces and moved around, which I thought was distracting. but, I finished the exercise and found out my R-Score in about 6 minutes. I urge you to go to Nationwide’s website and try this tool out and then come back here and tell me what your score is. Here’s my score:
According to Nationwide, the goal is to have a number that is greater than 100 no matter what your age. I’m happy that our number is 154, which means that we are on track to have 154% of our current standard of living during retirement. So that’s good news, I guess. I still want to increase the amount that we are saving.
Now, go get your score and report back here ASAP!
Topics: Calculators | 9 Comments »
October 25th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Yikes, those people were really annoying and then when you shut them off they just stand there. I agree, I could have done without them looking over my shoulder just like annoying salespeople. That being said our # is 200+ so I’m pretty excited about that. Investing in your early 20′s and the power of compounding is a beautiful thing!! Thanks for posting!!
October 25th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
67 which looks not so good. However, one weakness seemed to be that the calculator assumes you are 35 and doesn’t take into account your current annual savings. Since my salary has gone up substantially over the past two years and I am well under 35, my total savings are smaller than they would prefer. However, I am now saving around 30% of my gross income plus 100% of my bonus so my savings is growing significantly faster than in the past and I am looking more likely at needing to replace 70% of salary, not 100%. Interesting though, thanks.
October 25th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Our score came to 100. But, there is nothing good about it. I don’t believe we are that good because we don’t have any provisions for retirement yet (not by choice, but by circumstances). Personally, we would have rated ourselves in the range of 60-70….we know we are that bad. I might lament more about it on my blog soon.
October 25th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
This seemed to be very inaccurate compared to my financial advisors view on my personal situation. The results are very promising however and gives me hope to retire earlier than expected.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
This (and most of your other entires, and the PF community) have got me thinking about starting a Roth IRA for that lovely compounding interest (I’m only 19!). But when I contacted my bank (ING), they were utterly unhelpful. They said, okay, pick what funds you want to invest in, and how many shares of each and we’ll set it all up. Do you have any advice on what I should do without knowing my current financial situation? My rundown is: I have about 1,000 in savings, very little cc debt, and my student loans are locked in at low interest rates that I won’t have to pay off for years. I’m planning on starting out with $100 and adding 25-50 a month.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
My score came to 200+. I assume this web site thinks I want to retire at the “standard” age, whatever that is. It’d be better if you could enter your desired retirement age.
October 25th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I got a 60. I’m going to guess it’s because it assumes I’m 35 and should own a home when in fact I’m 23 and am saving for a down payment (no crazy negative amortization loans with no money down for me). I save about 30% of my gross income, so I think I’m on track for retirement love. Be nice if Nationwide fixed the calculator up to take into account that people start thinking about retirement before 35.
October 26th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
I got a 72. I’m guessing that’s because the calculator assumes you’re at least 35. I would guess if my real age was taken into account I’d have a much higher score. I’m 25 and have $95,000 in my 401k and Roth IRA. I think I’m doing a litle better than average…
November 14th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
I too am under the 35 age cutoff and think it’s interesting that so many of us are checking this out at a young age. It’s certainly important and I’m glad to see like-minded people out there. Btw, mine was 85.