Ask The Hammer – Software for Retirement Planning

Key Takeaways

• Ask your advisor to provide a written list of all key assumptions (tax rates, inflation, investment growth, longevity, Social Security projections) and demand evidence supporting each one—don't accept 'that's what the software default is' as an answer
• Run scenario analysis (what-if testing) on your retirement plan by adjusting assumptions one at a time—for example, test what happens if inflation is 4% instead of 2%, or if you live to 100 instead of 90—to understand your plan's vulnerabilities
• Treat your retirement plan like an annual health checkup: review it every 6 months and update it as real market conditions and inflation rates change, since your plan becomes outdated the moment you receive it
• Verify that assumptions are based on academic research or published data (like Social Security trustees' annual reports) rather than arbitrary defaults, because bad assumptions lead to bad retirement outcomes regardless of software quality
• Understand that retirement planning software itself has improved dramatically but still depends entirely on who is operating it—the quality of your plan reflects both the tool and your advisor's expertise and objectivity in setting realistic parameters