Savings Goal Projector

Curated by Vinod Kumar Jain & Amit Jain · All Frontier Global · free, no login

A savings goal has two unknowns and you usually have one of them. Enter the target and a timeframe to get the monthly amount required; enter the target and what you can actually put aside to get how long it takes. An assumed return is optional and, if you use one, it is your assumption. Illustrative arithmetic, not investment advice.

The formulae, written out

• Monthly rate i = annual return % ÷ 100 ÷ 12; N = months. Contributions arrive at the end of each month.
• Monthly required = (G − P(1 + i)^N) × i ÷ ((1 + i)^N − 1). With i = 0 this is simply (G − P) ÷ N.
• Months required = ln((G i + C) ÷ (P i + C)) ÷ ln(1 + i). With i = 0 this is (G − P) ÷ C.
• If the starting amount alone already exceeds the goal, no contribution is required and the tool says so rather than returning a negative number.

Honest limits

• Illustrative arithmetic, not advice and not a prediction. Any return you enter is an assumption of yours; a goal that only works at 12% a year is a goal that depends on a number nobody can promise you.
• Nothing adjusts for inflation. A house deposit target set today will not be the deposit required in ten years. If the goal is far off, consider raising the target rather than trusting the arithmetic.
• No tax, fee or currency handling. Returns are treated as pre-tax and fee-free; subtract fees from your assumed rate before entering it.
• For a plain cash goal, leave the return at 0. That is the conservative answer and often the honest one for anything under three years.

Sources

None, and none needed: these are the standard annuity formulae, written above, applied to numbers you entered. Nothing is fetched, nothing is stored, and no rate of return is suggested.

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