I was checking out how rich I will be in 40 years, and found that the CNN calculator is a little confused. Not only does the allowed range change every time I go to the page, the drop down box goes to two percent. I wonder how they managed to mangle an interest calculator so much that they can't go below a certain percentage.

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/savingscalc/savingscalc.html 

Just tried it out, and yeah, that is a horrible design.  It doesn't make much sense to use drop-down boxes because you are limiting your users to just those values.  Don't see why they couldn't just allow users to edit the value.  This is probably mug-worthy, though...

How does 9% become so special that it needs to be first? Is that the base rate in the U.S. Federal tax system? Definitely a horrible page though. I wonder how they come up with that 3.53.... lower limit too. Doesn't seem to be anything special about it, the way you'd assume a 2^31-1 limit if you saw 2147483647 somewhere.

MarcB:

How does 9% become so special that it needs to be first? Is that the base rate in the U.S. Federal tax system? Definitely a horrible page though. I wonder how they come up with that 3.53.... lower limit too. Doesn't seem to be anything special about it, the way you'd assume a 2^31-1 limit if you saw 2147483647 somewhere.

 I wonder where 21% has got to.  Putting percentages in a dropdown is just wrong.  Failure to put the numbers in the right order is madness.

Eternal Density:

 I wonder where 21% has got to.

bstorer:

It took 6%'s money and ran off with his wife.

Must have been a dutch wife. I hear they are easy to steal.

MasterPlanSoftware:

bstorer:

It took 6%'s money and ran off with his wife.

 

Must have been a dutch wife. I hear they are easy to steal.

Yeah, well, Dutch chicks really aren't that desirable..  a fact I found out a bit too late, unfortunately.  Maybe that's why Dutch men don't bother stopping us...

bstorer:

It took 6%'s money and ran off with his wife.

Is 6%'s wife 9%, since she's the one who is out of place? 

If you go to the website you'll see that after 19% only even numbers show up, because it's absolutly rediculous that anybody would have a return rate above 19% that's odd.

The hardcoded percentages mean that people from my state cannot use it, unless we want a really estimated estimate.

MarcB:

How does 9% become so special that it needs to be first? 

I haven't looked at the site, but 9% around the long-term average return of the US stock market, so it probably is the suggested value to use.  However, they can't just lock in the 9% because then some idiot with a lawyer would claim that they had promised 9% returns somehow.

As for 21%, I pity the fool who thinks that s/he will regularly see 21% returns on investments.

Nonsense... why with my money doubling every 4 years, I'll be rich enough to live on interest alone by the time I'm 40, bwa ha ha....

MarcB:

How does 9% become so special that it needs to be FIST!!!!!one!1!?

Why live on interest alone when you can be rich on interest alone!