Plan Your Retirement before It’s Too Late! Chula Wealth Plus App Can Help

Lecturers of Chulalongkorn Business School (CBS) have developed the Chula Wealth Plus application to calculate savings and help with retirement planning accurately while encouraging people to plan for life after their retirement.

“Have you planned your retirement yet?”

Many, especially young people, who are enjoying their work and building their lives, may not think that they are at the age to ponder this question.  They often think “I’ll start planning when I’m 50,” or “I’m still young. Let me enjoy spending my money first.”

However, according to Assistant Professor Dr. Roongkiat Ratanabanchuen, a CBS professor the younger you think about this question, the better.

“Savings for retirement is long term.  Many people don’t think about it very much or feel that they may not live that long, or might die a few years after retirement.  Therefore, they pay no attention to the importance of having savings, or by the time they give it a thought, it might be too late,” Dr. Roongkiat reflects on the current lack of awareness on retirement planning and its importance to Thai people.  This has inspired CBS faculty members led by Associate Professor Dr. Pornanong Budsaratragoon, Head of the Retirement Readiness Index (RRI) Program, and Assistant Professor Dr. Roongkiat to develop “Chula Wealth Plus” to help with savings calculation to make retirement planning easier.

When should I start saving for retirement?

“The sooner you save, the better,” Asst. Prof. Dr. Roongkiat replied.

“We tend to start thinking about retirement savings at age of 45 – 50, leaving us with only 10 years to save, which is too late. If we start saving and plan for retirement at an early age, there will be more payoffs.”

Even as a first jobber with little salary left to save, you should still do, even for a small amount.

Asst. Prof. Dr. Roongkiat invites us to imagine our retirement when we have no income. If we are not ready to take care of ourselves on everyday financial needs, the burden will fall on our children and grandchildren.  And if we do not have them?

“If our children and grandchildren have to support us on food, lodging, healthcare, there will be a lot of problems to follow, because they will perpetually have no savings. There will be family quarrels and stress in the society.”

There are many ways of saving for retirement planning, set aside part of the earnings for bank savings, real estate, or other valuable assets such as paintings, amulets, etc.

“Buying a house forces a type of savings because when you buy a house, you have a debt to pay, but when you do, you have a place to live that is your own, and the house continues to increase in value,” Dr. Roongkiat said.

Calculate your retirement savings with Chula Wealth Plus

Once we realize that we should start planning for retirement when we start working and earning money, the next question is how much to save to live a comfortable life after retirement.

“Chula Wealth Plus is based on the idea that people don’t usually know how much money they should have when they retire, so they don’t know how much they should save each month,” Asst. Prof. Dr. Roongkiat said while detailing how the Chula Wealth Plus app came about.

“This app will help you ‘set goals’ for retirement savings, help to assess readiness, and give you a clearer picture of savings. When we know how to spend and make an assessment, we will know if we save enough, which will lead to a change in our behavior.” Dr. Roongkiat hopes that the Chula Wealth Plus application will be a tool to make people more aware of retirement planning.

Highlights of Chula Wealth Plus

Nowadays, many applications can help you calculate your retirement savings, but Chula Wealth Plus stands out from other applications with its two main functions:

1. Calculate the adequacy of current savings

The app will help calculate your retirement savings given your job, benefits, and investments, and if it would be enough to cover your expenses.  The Chula Wealth Plus app will calculate based on actual conditions and platforms, for example, savings through the government pension fund, social security fund, provident fund, national savings fund, etc.

Moreover, the app uses statistics and simulations to assess the probability of future savings based on the risk and appropriate return of each asset. The app also factors in inflation.

“This function paints the user a picture of how to invest, how to plan to earn more to save for retirement,” Dr. Roongkiat concluded.

2. Calculate the appropriate withdrawal rate from the savings.

The program will help to calculate that if you have a certain amount of money when you retire, and you want to make a withdrawal once a month to live on, when will the money run out? or how much you would have left at age 99?  This will provide you with a better idea of how you should spend so as not to suffer in the future.

No matter how many strengths the Chula Wealth Plus application has and how accurately it can calculate your savings, there are still limitations.

“The limitations of the app are ourselves.  Our habits are our limitations. We are lazy and couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to saving. So, the most important thing is to alter our behavior and create the habit of saving today,” Dr.Roongkiat concluded.

Download the Chula Wealth Plus application for free via the App Store.

You can stay up to date on great savings news and tips on

Facebook: Chula Wealth Plus 

YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXuMvoAfsgK2apuRe4VJs3r3hj_p6ygp8.

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