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October 8, 2010

FutureAdvisor – Take the Mystery Out of Your Retirement

Not sure if you’re saving enough for retirement? FutureAdvisor is an application that can answer that question, and do a whole lot more. The investment analyzer website lets you know whether you’re on track for retirement, provides a one-stop shop for viewing all of your retirement accounts in one place, and even offers expert advice and opinions on how to adjust your portfolio to achieve higher returns. Whereas applications like Mint.com and moneyStrands offer to track your everyday spending, FutureAdvisor focuses solely on measuring your retirement savings and letting you know how it’s adding up.

The advice that FutureAdvisor offers will differ depending on your age, income, and current savings amount, so you’ll need to enter those bits of information before getting started using the site. Select your brokerage from a drop down box—the site supports Fidelity Investment and Schwab, but encourages users to submit suggestions for future brokerages to add, as well—and give FutureAdvisor permission to download your online portfolio. Once this information has been uploaded to the site, the experts at FutureAdvisor will be able to tell you whether you’re saving enough to meet your desired goals, whether your assets are diversified enough, and whether making any minor changes could save you money in fund fees. The application also offers projection charts that estimate when you’ll be able to retire comfortably given your current saving patterns, and allows you to see all of your investments from various brokerages combined in one cohesive chart.

Because security is always an issue when dealing with financial websites and investment data, FutureAdvisor uses bank-level encryption methods to ensure its users’ information never leaks out. Additionally, the data downloads that FutureAdvisor makes are read-only, which means it is not possible for anyone to transfer money into or out of an account through the site. For anyone who has ever wondered how to get on track for a comfortable retirement, FutureAdvisor is an amazing application that can point you in the right direction.

Practical Uses:

  • Find out whether you’re saving enough for retirement
  • Get ideas on how to adjust your investments for higher returns
  • View all of your investment portfolios in one place
  • Stop making rookie mistakes with your retirement accounts

Insider Tips:

  • Input your account information from Fidelity Investment or Schwab
  • FutureAdvisor recommends funds similar to the ones you already have, but with lower fees
  • Input your age to get more specific investment tips and information
  • The app can tailor its 401k advice to meet company limits for employees working at a few well-known corporations

What we liked:

  • Using FutureAdvisor is much cheaper than asking an accountant for advice
  • Graphs make difficult financial concepts easy to understand
  • FutureAdvisor offers advice on small things you can do to increase your investment earnings
  • Log in to one site and see all of your investment portfolios on one page

What we didn’t like:

  • The app only offers support for Fidelity Investment or Schwab accounts
  • Handing over investment account information to a new company is worrisome to some people

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: August 2010 (Beta)
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
  • Founded by: Bo Lu and Jon Xu
  • Web site: https://futureadvisor.com

Costs:

  • Free

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