FI Calc vs SquirrelPlan

FI Calc is a free web calculator for evaluating retirement plans and withdrawal strategies with historical market data. It runs simulations from annual figures covering 1871 through 2024, compiled from Robert Shiller’s data set, while warning that historical results do not guarantee future performance. Users can model equities, bonds and cash, set rebalancing and changing allocations, and add wages, Social Security or extra withdrawals for future expenses. The calculator provides income projection, savings growth projection, withdrawal planning, Social Security modeling and scenario analysis. Simulations can be exported as CSV files for spreadsheet analysis. Inputs are processed in the browser; saved or shared calculations are encoded in URLs that may reach the hosting provider, services and recipients. Google Analytics may receive page URLs containing saved inputs. FI Calc does not automatically model taxes or required minimum distributions and currently has no Monte Carlo simulations. The free plan costs nothing.

SquirrelPlan is a free, open-source tool for projecting and visualizing a financial future. Enter assets, liabilities, monthly income and expenses, then add assumptions for returns, interest or annual increases. You can direct surplus savings among asset classes and set different strategies for different life periods. Retirement inputs include current and legal retirement ages, estimated net monthly pension, and optional early retirement age and withdrawal rate. A standard simulation projects from those figures; an optional Monte Carlo run produces hundreds of projections using randomized annual asset returns. Charts and a table show wealth over time, while scenario analysis supports comparisons between assumptions. Preset plans cover Recent Graduate, Early Career, Mid Career and Late Career. SquirrelPlan is a client-side web application, also runnable by opening its static index.html file in a modern browser without installing dependencies. Plans are stored in browser local storage; the project has no backend server. Data can be imported or exported as JSON, and the README lists multi-language support. The free plan is free.