I have been using a HP 12c calculator for years for my financial work. If I input a present value of 260,000 for my retirement account with a monthly addition of 3875 (46,500/year) and compound for 17 years at 10%a year (0.833 a month) I get a total account value of 3.4 million.
Using ESPlanner I get an account value around 2.2 Million. Why the difference, is there a difference in the compounding algorithm?
THanks
Disclaimer: ESPlannerBASIC, ESPlanner, ESPlannerPLUS and ESPlannerPRO, are educational calculators designed to give users input in mapping out financial futures, but should not be acted upon as a complete financial plan. The creators of these programs are not certified, registered, authorized, or any other type of financial planners. These programs are simply tools for helping you think through economic futures. Its "recommendations" should be viewed as informative inputs into your own decision-making with respect to saving and the purchase of life insurance. ESPlannerBASIC, ESPlanner, ESPlannerPLUS and ESPlannerPRO provide neither economic, financial nor tax advice, which can only be delivered to you by authorized professionals.
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The ESPlanner value is after inflation and uses the real return to show a total in current dollars. The calculator may be showing the nominal return. Use "(1 + real) * (1 + inflation) = (1 + nominal)" to convert between real and nominal per another thread in this forum and this may clear things up.
Thank you very much for clearing that up.. I changed the inflation rate to 0% in ESPlanner and indeed the numbers match within range.
It was confusing to me to look at it after inflation while tracking my investment porfolio.
Thanks again