Retirement calculators make the math of long-term financial modeling easy. But they’re not foolproof and can easily mislead if used incorrectly.

Exponent Investment Management retirement calculator will take your current savings strategy and project what your withdrawals in retirement might look like based on your targeted retirement age and savings and investment amounts. The tool will also help you create a plan for reaching your goal and map out different paths to get there.

It’s important to remember that the accuracy of any retirement planning calculator is only as good as the data you put into it. If you enter bad information or unrealistic assumptions, you will get bad results. That’s why it’s best to have all your financial and benefit information ready before you use a retirement calculator.

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Your desired retirement income is the total amount you would like to receive (after taxes) each year from your savings and investments in retirement. It is a key factor in determining whether you will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement and it’s also the metric that many retirees use to determine how much they should save for retirement.

Annual rate of inflation (typically measured by the Consumer Price Index).

Your estimated net worth at your retirement date. This will include all your assets – including 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, individual retirement accounts, annuities, home equity and other investments. It will not include debt such as mortgages or credit cards.

The percentage of your annual income you will contribute to retirement. This should reflect the total amount you save toward your retirement and should include all your employer-sponsored retirement plans such as 401(k), 403(b) and 457(b), plus any personal IRA or Roth IRA you have.