Savings Goal Calculator

If you wish to find out how long it will take to save a particular amount of money, our savings goal calculator is just for you.

The tool will calculate the months required to reach your goal according to your saving plan. The calculation will consider the value of monthly payments, the interest earned each month, and the income tax you must pay.

The calculator will give you an exact answer regardless of your saving horizon. You can use it either for short-term or long-term savings goals.

Note that for a long-term saving goal measured in years, you can set up an annual increase in the monthly payment. This percentage coefficient will increase your monthly payment after each full year of saving.

This functionality can simulate your future salary increase and therefore allow you to find the most probable result.

How to use a savings goal calculator?

The calculator is meant to be easy to use, and all the inputs have detailed labels. However, in order to avoid any misinterpretation, below, you can find a detailed description of each field.

Goal amount

The fixed amount of money you wish to save. It could be any number, no matter how ambitious!

Note that the input mentions US dollars, but the calculations are currency agnostic, which means the numerical result will be the same for any other currency like EURO, Swiss Franc, British Pound, or Japanese Yen.

Initial amount

The amount of money you currently have. Treat this like a seed investment. Even a small amount will speed up the saving process because it will provide a stable stream of interest from the first month of saving.

Monthly savings

The amount of money you intend to save each month. This field is mandatory since it will be the main motor of your capital accumulation.

Annual increase

Define how much you plan to increase your monthly payments each year. We advise setting up this field for long-term investments to account for future salary increases.

Over the long run, it is a real game changer to your savings plan. People often underestimate how much they can save during long periods. Salaries are never constant due to the rise in your skills and inflation.

Interest rate

Compound interest is the biggest ally of all savers. In this field, input your investments' expected average annual return rate.

Compounding

The compounding frequency will determine how often the interest earned will be added to your account balance. After the compounding operation, the base amount for future interest calculations will be higher for each subsequent compounding period. Thanks to this, your capital accumulation will accelerate.

Our savings goal calculator will allow you to choose between three options monthly, quarterly, and annually.

Tax rate

The income tax rate for your interest earnings. The tax rate is applied after each compounding period and will decrease the amount of interest added to your savings balance.

How much to save a month?

According to the most popular guidelines, saving at least 20% of your salary is best practice. However, the exact answer is very individual and depends on your earnings and savings target.

If you wish to find out the exact amount of money you need to save per month in order to reach your goal, you may play with different settings of the calculator above.

Note that even small but regular monthly savings could accumulate to high values in the long term. Check out how much you could get if you save $100 a month or $500 a month if you have a bigger budget.

How to achieve your monthly savings goal?

Achieving a monthly saving goal is not that hard if you follow the best practices.

Setup realistic goals. Calculate your monthly living costs and then estimate how much you could potentially save each month.
Create the resolution, for example: Save $500 a month. Don’t be too hard on yourself; otherwise, you will not be able to keep the resolution.
Pay yourself first, which means you should save your target amount once you receive the salary and start spending the rest of your money only after you put your savings aside.
Make this a habit!

Helpful tools

Calcopolis is not just this one tool. We are providing many online tools that help you prepare your savings plan. For example, a regular savings calculator will let you determine how much you could save during a fixed period.

If you wonder how long savings last once you reach your goal, check out our other calculator.

Authors

Created by Lucas Krysiak on 2022-06-11 15:21:45 | Last review by Mike Kozminsky on 2024-02-11 11:56:09