Buy a Financial Calculator

Anyone who is committed to increasing their personal wealth would be strongly recommended to buy a financial calculator.

I bought my first financial calculator when I was at University some 18 years ago, it was a Hewlett Packlard 10B Business Calculator, and I still use it today. The model has been updated now – Hewlett Packard 10BII - but the new model still offers the same great facilities I have come to know and love.

It carries out all the normal calculations you would expect of a scientific calculator, but also provides the ability to calculate the following:

Growth of a set level of regular savings, given amount, rate of interest and term in years is known
Net Present Value (of a range of regular inflows of cash)
Internal Rate of Return
Compound Interest Calculations
Time Value of Money

For example, if I save £100 per month, for 25 years, at 6% interest this calculator will calculate the future value of my savings (the answer is £69,299!). If I change this to 26 years, the answer is now £74,807 – an additional £5,508 for investing for another 12 months!!!

For retirement planning, say I have identified that I need a pot of £360,000 in 23 years time to retire on the income I need to live in retirement, I can calculate how much I need to invest on an annual or monthly basis, assuming any rate of return, to hit the target.

The third calculation I like to use the calculator for is calculating how long money will last for, for example, I have £10,000 today and I wish to draw £250 per month from it. Based on an interest rate of 4%, my calculator shows me that my money will last for 43 months.

Here’s the manual (4.0MB) for my Hewlett Packard calculator – it shows all the different calculations you can do with a financial calculator.

Buy a financial calculator from Amazon.

Related articles:

Rule of 72 – Time Value of Money

It’s Not How Much you Save, But How Long