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Numerous mass market website tools exist and focus on retirement planning. Many investment firms offer these to lure you to their websites. Some require you to register whereas others can be accessed as a “guest.” Such tools walk you through the calculations needed to figure how much you should be saving to reach your retirement goal.

The assumptions that you plug into these calculators are really important, so here’s a review of the key ones:

 Asset allocation: Enter your current allocation (the portion invested in stocks versus bonds) and you’ll also typically select an allocation for after you’re retired. Most such calculators don’t include real estate as a possible asset. If you own real estate as an investment, you should treat those assets as a stock-like investment, since they have similar long-term risk and return characteristics. (Calculate your equity in investment real estate, which is the difference between a property’s current market value and mortgage debt on that property.)

 Age of retirement: Plug in your preferred age of retirement, within reason, of course. There’s no point plugging in a dream number like “I’d like to retire by age 45, but I know the only way I can do that is to win the lottery!” Depending on how the analysis works out, you can always go back and plug in a different age. Sometimes folks are pleasantly surprised that their combined accumulated resources provide them with a decent enough standard of living that they can consider retiring sooner than they thought.

 Include Social Security: Some calculators ask whether you want to include expected Social Security benefits. I’d rather that they didn’t pose this question at all, because you definitely should include your Social Security benefits in the calculations. Don’t buy into the nonsense that the Social Security program will vaporize and you’ll get little to nothing from it. For the vast majority of people, Social Security benefits are an important component of their retirement income, so do include it. Based on your current income, the calculator will automatically plug in your estimated benefits. So long as your income hasn’t changed or won’t change dramatically, using the calculator’s estimated number should be fine. Alternatively, you can use your personal information that you can access on the Social Security website at www.ssa.gov.

Many calculators allow you to make adjustments such as to your desired age of retirement, rate of savings, and to what age you’d like your savings to last. So, for example, if the analysis shows that you have much more than enough to retire by age 65, try plugging in, say, age 62 and voilà, the calculator quickly shows you how the numbers change.

If you’re self-employed, you can establish your own retirement savings plans for yourself and any employees you have. Simplified Employee Pension-Individual Retirement Accounts (SEP-IRA) allow you to put away up to 20 percent of your self-employment income up to an annual maximum of $58,000 (for tax year 2021).