Very basic even with paid option
I’ve used the free online federal retirement planner but wanted something on the phone. The free option with FERS pro is extremely basic. It’s not intuitive (am I entering current salary or projected salary at retirement?). It doesn’t even allow you to adjust salary for inflation. The “pro” upgrade claims to allow for a 50-year forecast + TSP + social security.
So I paid the fee hoping for something closer to the online OPM version. After paying the fee, you can see that option on the main screen, but it still makes you go through the very basic FERS annuity calculator to supposedly save the base estimate. The problem is once you run the basic analysis, there are no options to do a deeper analysis. You can’t even get back to the main screen unless you exit and restart the app. You can save the analysis, but if you restart the app, there’s no way to load the saved analysis. So even if you supposedly saved the analysis and tried to run the advanced forecast, the app still requires you to run the basic analysis first, which again leaves you with no option to run the forecast + TSP + SS analysis.
You can kinda run these analyses separately, but they’re all very basic. You can adjust the TSP withdrawal planner somewhat, so you can get an estimate of your TSP balance at certain age, but the numbers don’t make sense. If you put in $1,000,000 at 6% annual return , the app says you will have $1,188,145 at the end of 10 years with a lifetime withdrawal of $499,339. What does that even mean? With 6% return for 10 years you should have way more than $1.188M, and does the withdrawal start at the end of that time period, and for how long? There’s no explanation.
Same for the social security estimate. The app tells you to go to SSA.gov to get the monthly PIA. So what do I need the app?
This app is junk.
So I paid the fee hoping for something closer to the online OPM version. After paying the fee, you can see that option on the main screen, but it still makes you go through the very basic FERS annuity calculator to supposedly save the base estimate. The problem is once you run the basic analysis, there are no options to do a deeper analysis. You can’t even get back to the main screen unless you exit and restart the app. You can save the analysis, but if you restart the app, there’s no way to load the saved analysis. So even if you supposedly saved the analysis and tried to run the advanced forecast, the app still requires you to run the basic analysis first, which again leaves you with no option to run the forecast + TSP + SS analysis.
You can kinda run these analyses separately, but they’re all very basic. You can adjust the TSP withdrawal planner somewhat, so you can get an estimate of your TSP balance at certain age, but the numbers don’t make sense. If you put in $1,000,000 at 6% annual return , the app says you will have $1,188,145 at the end of 10 years with a lifetime withdrawal of $499,339. What does that even mean? With 6% return for 10 years you should have way more than $1.188M, and does the withdrawal start at the end of that time period, and for how long? There’s no explanation.
Same for the social security estimate. The app tells you to go to SSA.gov to get the monthly PIA. So what do I need the app?
This app is junk.
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