Copyright: Visual Help Copyright® 1993 Firas Bushnaq


CONTENTS
The Retirement Planner

General Program Usage

Input Values

Understanding the $401K Graph

Understanding the Income Graph

Social Security Benefits

Asset List

Tips

Saving Current Settings

Printing

Registration

Additional Services

Technical and Sales Support


PROGRAM USAGE
General Program Usage

      This program is very simple to use.  As you can see the program starts with some default values.  You can change an individual value when it's bar is highlighted blue.  Highlight by clicking on the value you wish to change.  You can also use the TAB or Enter buttons to get to the desired value.  Once you have changed a value, you must switch to a different value with the click, Tab, or Enter method to update the graph and spreadsheet values.

     You can view the results of the program in the three different ways: the Spreadsheet, $401K Graph, and the Income Graph.  Simply click on the Graph or Spreadsheet buttons to switch views.

     For more help on individual values, click on the Help button while the value is highlighted.  Help will then pop up about that topic.

     There are tips and examples on how to use this program within each Input Value section in help.


Input Values

Current Age

Retirement Age

Current Annual Salary

Current 401K Balance

Estimated Annual Raise

Retirement Income Goal

Annual 401K Contribution

Company Matching Funds

Annual Return on 401K

Annual Return During Retirement

Estimated Annual Inflation


Current Age

      Enter your current age.  This program will only accept values between 20 and 65.  This field will only allow numbers. Do not enter any letters or symbols.

Note

This value will remain locked unless your register the product.  See Registration for help.

Tip

This may be obvious, but the earlier you start investing the better.  To demonstrate how dramatic this can be, try the following example:

       Suppose you started at age 20 and saved $2000 per year for 10 years and stopped (@ age 30).  Lets see how much your portfolio would be worth at age 65. Input the following:

Current Age: 20
Current Annual Salary: $50,000
Current 401K Balance: $0
Annual 401K Contribution: 4%
Annual Return on 401K: 10%
Retirement Age: 65
Estimated Annual Raise: 0%
The other values can be anything.

      Look at the 401K balance at age 30 ( $35,062).  Input this value in Current 401K Balance.  Change current age to 30.  Change your Annual 401K Contribution to 0%.  Look at the balance at age 65 ($985,000).  Remember this value.

      Now suppose at Age 30 you start saving $2000 per year until you retire at age 65. Keep your current age at 30.  Change your Annual 401K contribution back to 4%.   Change Curretnt 401K balance to $0.  Look at the 401K balance at age 65 ($596,000).

      In the first part you saved a total of $18,000: at age 65 you have $985,000.
      In the second part you saved a total of $72,000: at age 65 you have $596,000.

Start Saving Early!


Retirement Age

     Enter the age at which you are planning to retire.  This value must be greater than the Current Age you enter and must be less than 75.  Enter only numbers.  Do not enter any letters or symbols.

Tip

      Try shifting this value by a year or two.  You may be suprised to see how much this affects your retirement income.  At your retirement age, the return you enter for after retirement takes effect.


Current Annual Salary

Enter your Current Annual Salary. This value must be between $10,000 and $3,000,000.  Enter only numbers.  Do not enter any symbols or letters.

Tip

This program relies heavily on percentages.  If you wish to see how much you will save using dollar amounts, for example $2,000 per year.  Make your income an even $100,000 and use 2% as your 401K contribution.


CURRENT 401K BALANCE
Current Principle

Enter the present value of your savings, or your investment portfolio.  This program will accept numbers from $0 to $1,000,000.  Do not enter any letters or symbols.

Tip

Again, this number affects your portfolio significantly.  Even though you do not have much control over how much you have saved so far (i.e. water under the bridge at this point), play with this number to see how important it is to start early.  See the tip for Current Age.


Estimated Annual Raise

Enter an estimated annual raise.  This Program will accept numbers between 0 and 25 percent.  Enter only numbers.  Do not enter any numbers or symbols.  Enter whole numbers. For example, enter 5.0 if you expect 5.0%.

Tip

Since this is a speculative amount, try to be conservative.  To assume a cost of living increase in your salary, make this field equal to the Estimated Annual Inflation field.


Retirement Income Goal

Enter your Goal in TODAY'S dollars.  This program will accept a goal between $10,000 and $3,000,000.  Enter only numbers.  Do not enter letters or symbols.

Enter in TODAY'S dollars.  This program will adjust your goal for inflation.  You can see this effect on the spreadsheet or the Income graph.

Tip

A good rule of thumb is to enter an income you would feel comfortable living on today, and take 70% of that number.


ANNUAL 401K CONTRIBUTION


Company Matching Funds

Enter the percent of your salary your company will contribute to your 401K plan.  Enter only numbers.  Do not enter any letters or symbols.  If you wish to enter 4.2%, then enter 4.2.

Tip

Make sure this value is a percentage of your income and not a percentage of your contribution.  Also, if you are unsure of how much money your company will match, consult with your personnel or human resources representative.  They should be happy to help you out.


ANNUAL RETURN ON 401K


Annual Return During Retirement

Enter an estimated return on your investments during your retirement years.   This value must be between 0 and 25.  Enter only numbers.  Do not enter any letters or symbols.  If you wish to enter 4.2%, then enter 4.2.

Tip

Since your investments may be your only source of income during your retirement, you might want to consider being more conservative with your investments.  Therefore, try entering a conservative value for this return.  In most cases, the return will be less than your return prior to retirement.

NOTE: We are not advocating any particular investment strategy.


Estimated Annual Inflation

Enter a value for Annual Inflation.  This value must be between 0 and 25 percent.  Enter only numbers.  Do not enter any symbols or letters.  If you wish to enter 4.2%, then enter 4.2.

Tip

Historical estimates for inflation typically range between 3 to 6 percent a year.

Tip

If you wish to see all numbers in todays dollars, then enter zero for this value.  To be conservative, you should also enter zero for your Raise.   Also, you should decrease your Annual Return on 401K by the Inflation rate you estimate to be true. You will see that your retirement Goal will remain constant over time.


401K GRAPH
Understanding the Principle Graph

This is your portfolio balance vs. time.  The blue area is before your retirement age and the green area is after.  As you move the mouse pointer over the graph area the vertical position line will attach to your pointer.  Notice the the Age and Balance values change according to the position of the vertical line.  Basically, it's an automatic graph reader.

     As you make value changes, do not be fooled.  The scale changes to fit the data on the graph.


Understanding the Income Graph

       This graph represents the Income in your retirement years.  The light blue area is your income goal, the green area is income from your investments, and the red area is the difference between the two values.  As you move the mouse pointer into the graph area, the vertical position line will attach to the pointer.  This becomes an automatic graph reader. Notice how the values in the boxes change as you move the bar.

       The value of your investment income may be more than your goal.  This will not show up on the graph.  This program assumes that you will only take your income goal as income and re-invest the difference.  If there is a bar with red and green areas, this means that you needed to use some of your savings to supplement your investment income.  This means your 401K balance is decreasing.  An all red bar means you are out of money for retirement.

       Note that the only way to guarantee that you will be able to maintain your standard of living in retirement is if you are able to live solely off of the interest from your savings, plus any other payments you might be receiving (i.e. social security, pensions, etc.).  Once you start dipping into your principle, then you are guaranteeing that your balance will become zero within a finite number of years.


Social Security

Activating Social Security Calculations

1	Click Options on the Menu Bar

2	Click Show Social Security.  This will check that option.

Disclaimer

These Social Security calculations are estimates only.   Since social security benefits are based on the wage earners wage history, projecting expected benefits is very difficult.  Assumptions need to be made about your projected income as well as projected increases in Social Security benefits.  Therefore the calculations used in this program are based on some conservative assumptions.  For a Personal Earnings and Benefits Estimate Statement please contact your local Social Security office.  Or, you can learn more about your Social Security benefits on the internet at http:\\www.ssa.gov.

Calculation Details and Assumptions

1	All numbers are based on 1996 benefit numbers.  Maximum Benefit in 1996 is $15,483.  To receive to max benefit you would have had to average 62,700 dollars over the past 35 years ( all earnings adjusted backward for inflation ).  The maximum benefit assumes that you retire at age 65 with lifetime maximum earnings and no period of disability.  If you retire before age 65 your benefit is adjusted down depending on how early you retire.  If you retire later than age 65, your benefit will be adjusted up.  The program does not make any of these adjustments to your account.  The Minimum benefit in 1996 is $6,931.

2	Maximum Income is adjusted into the future at the rate of 4% per year.

3	You will have worked consistently for 35 years prior to retirement.

4	Maximum and Minimum benefits are inflated into the future at a rate 4.64% per year.

5	Your Salary will be inflated by the estimated annual raise you entered into this program.

6	If your projected salary at age 62 is more than projected high salary (the inflation adjusted salary of $62,700 to receive the maximum benefit ), you will receive the adjusted maximum benefit.

If your salary is less than that projected salary:  you will receive a percentage of the projected maximum benefit, no less than the projected minimum benefit.

7	Once your benefit is calculated at age 62 the benefit is adjusted for cost of living increases.  COLA - Cost of Living Adjustment is usally less than the annual inflation index.  Historically this number has been 5.43 percent.  This program uses 4% to be conservative.

Vesion Note

Version 2.2(4) will only show calculations on the income graph.  Version 2.3 will have SSN calculations print and show up in spread sheet format.


Asset List

Note

This feature can be used to calculate the estimated annual return of all your investments.  This value is a weighted average of the assets and their individual returns. However, if you have an unregistered version of this software the value can not be inputed to the main work form.

Inputing to the Asset List

1	Click on the Asset List Button to Bring up the Form

2	Enter the Description of the Asset ( any text accepted )

3	Enter the percent of the entire portfolio the one asset represents.  The total of all your assets must be 100%.  You can only enter numbers, and the number entered is whole perecentage.  For example 30% is entered 30 not .30 or not 30%.

4	Enter the estimate annual return of the individual asset.  The total return on all investments can not exceed 25%.  Perectages are enter in the same way as the above percentage.

Printing

This list is printed out when you print your spread sheet.  SEE Printing.


Tips

1	Look at the Input Value sections for more tips.

2	If you want to see the raw dollars you will be saving, then enter zero for your Annual Return on 401K.

3	If you want to see every value in today's dollars, then enter zero for both Inflation and your Raise, then decrease your Return on your 401K by your estimated Inflation rate.


Saving

When you exit the program, you will be automatically prompted to save your present values.  If you choose YES the next time you start, these values will automatically be loaded into the program.


Printing

Choose Print under the File in the menu bar.  You will then be prompted to enter the range of ages you wish to print.  This will print the range of ages you choose, as well as all the input values.  This program will only print the spreadsheet values (sorry, it won't print the graphs at this time).

Printing Graphs

This version does not have the ability to print the graphs.  That function will be available in Version 2.4 due out mid summer 1996.

Until that time here is a Windows tip to print the graphs on your own.  With the main screen open: with the graph you wish to print up, press the ALT and Print Screen buttons at the same time.  Then open paintbrush.exe and paste (CTRL-V), and then Print using paintbrush.  This tip works for any windows application.


Registration

     As you may have noticed "Current Age" and "Annual Return on 401K" are not enabled.  This is a demonstration program which shows you all of the features of the program.  However, to unlock the two above fields you need to Register with SoftLock Services.  To do this, click on Register on the menu bar and follow the directions.


Additional Services

The following services are available fromTorrid Technologies.  Please contact us at ttsupport@torrid-tech.com or at (919) 571-2565. to inquire about any of these services.

OTHER CUSTOMIZATIONS OF OUR SOFTWARE

•	Customize with your logo or photo

•	Custom HELP screens about your company and services

•	Custom backgrounds behind the graphical display

YOU TELL US WHAT YOU WANT

•	PHOTO/LOGO SCANNING

•	FLOPPY DUPLICATION

•	LABEL DESIGN & DUPLICATION

•	CUSTOM/CONTRACT PROGRAMMING

•	WEB SITE DESIGN

•	WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Some Ideas On How to Use this SOFTWARE

•	Customize it and use it as a promotional item with potential customers

•	Buy a site license for your employees

•	Bundle it with your software as an order incentive

•	Generate qualified leads for your financial services

•	Use it as an "electronic business card"


TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Technical and Sales Support

Technical

ttsupport@torrid-tech.com

Sales

ttsales@torrid-tech.com


Adding Copies to License

Note

This option is only available with the Customizable Version of this Software Package.

1	If not already in the Setup Disk Utility screen. Click on Make Setup Disk under Custom on the main meun bar.

2	Click on Add Copies to Your License.

3	Enter the number of copies you would like to add to your license.

4	Call the phone number on the listed on the screen to purchase additional licenses to be added to your setup.


Annual Investment Contribution

Enter the percent of your income you would like to contribute to your investment portfolio plan each year.  This program will accept values between 0 and 25 percent.  Do not enter any symbols or letters.  Enter whole numbers.  For example, if you wish to contribute 5.3%, then enter 5.3.

Tip

Out of all the values you enter, this is the field you have the most control over.  You cannot control inflation, your return, or in most cases even your salary.  So, if you need to adjust your numbers to meet your goals, this is the field you should be changing.


Annual Return on Investments

Enter the estimated return you expect from your investments.  This value must be between 0 and 25.  Do not enter any symbols or letters.  If you wish to enter 8.6%, then enter 8.6.

Note

This value is locked at 6% unless you register this product.

Tip

Play with this value.  This value has an incredible effect on your portfolio,  even a half of a percent can make a large difference.

Tip

If you wish to see your account grow in just raw dollars (money you put into the account) over time, then enter zero for this value.


Customize Splash Screen

Note

This feature only available with Customizable Version of this software package.

1	Click on Customize Splash Screen under Custom on main menu bar.

2	Enter information in fields.

3	You may enter some "free flowing" ad text.  For example: For more information on our financial services or this software please contact us at the above numbers.

4	Click on View Splash Screen to see how it looks.

WARNING

Once you Make your first Setup Disk, the Contact Name field will no longer be editable.  Please verify this field before you make any disk.


Making Setup Disk

Note

This option is only available on the Broker Version of this software package.

Options

To make a setup disk first choose the options you wish have on the setup disk.  (1) Is the setup disk in the A or B drive. (2) You have the option to make a free setup disk.  This will be "charged" against your license. Or, you can choose to make the disk a registerable copy.  The person who receives the disk will have to purchase the program through our registration process.  (3) You can choose to have your own splash screen, SEE CUSTOMIZING SPLASH SCREEN.  Or, you can use our standard splash screen.

Make Disk

When you use this feature for the first time it will lock what you have input for  your name in the Customize Splash Screen.  YOU NEED TO VERIFY YOUR NAME ON THE SPLASH SCREEN BEFORE YOU MAKE YOUR FIRST DISK.

1	Insert formatted disk into drive A or B.

2	Click on Make Setup Disk under Custom on main menu bar.

3	Ensure your options are set to the settings you would like.

4	Click on Make Setup Disk button.

5	If there are any errors the process will stop and you will have to start the make disk function from the start.

6	If you you choose the free disk option your license will be decremented by one upon successful completion of a setup disk,

Add Copies to Your License


Retirement Income Distribution

You have two options under this setting.
                                (1) Balance Widthdrawal
                                (2) Interest Only

Balance Widthdrawal

This option allows you to maintain your "retirement goal" standard of living throughout your retirement.  That is if you have enough money.  What this option means to you is that you withdraw from your 401K principal if your investment return is less than your retirement goal. For example, if your 401k Balance is $1.5 million and your Return on Investment during retirement is 10%.  Your dollar return for the year is $150,000.  Now suppose your retirement goal for that year is $175,000 then this option subtracts $25,000 from your balance to meet your goal.

Interest Only

This option gives you more security.  If you do not match your retirement goal with your return on investment you do not withdraw from savings to make up the difference.  This option allows you maintain a 401K balance throughout your retirement. However, if you have a shortfall in money your standard of living will go down as inflation moves along.  The income graph shows this affect quite well.  The Balance Graph may look odd with the balance remaining the same throughout retirement, but it is correct.


Verify Contact Name

Note

This only refers to the Customizable Version of this software.

To protect our license we disable the Contact Name after you make your first setup disk using your splash screen. You may copy your orginal setup disk and give it to anyone.  However, if they choose to use the program and would like their own name on the splash screen they need to register the product.  If you have any questions about this you can contact us at the number listed on the Add Additional Copies to Your License screen.


Income Graph