What's inside
- Compare: your age, the start age, the monthly pension, a yearly cost-of-living raise, the lump sum and your expected return; the pension's value today, pension minus lump sum, the pension's return (IRR) to your plan age, the break-even age and the total paid
- If you live to 75, 80, 85, 90, 95 or 100: the pension's value today, the difference and its return for each
- Schedule: 720 months of payments, present values and the lump sum's balance
- Sample: age 62, $2,000 a month from 65 or $300,000 now: at a 5% return they're within $1,166 of each other to age 90; the pension pays 1.77% a year if you live to 80 and 6.00% to 100
Checked, not just designed: all 9,400 formulas recalculate with zero errors, and every result was checked against an independent calculation (exact decimals, bisection for the return, a month-by-month simulation) in 16 cases.
Works in Excel and Google Sheets. Taxes, survivor options and plan guarantees aren't included. Not financial advice.
Try the free version first
The free online calculator uses the same model for a quick answer. The spreadsheet adds tracking, history and the full views.