Free online tool
Savings Goal Calculator
Enter your goal, timeline, and expected return — see exactly how much you need to save each month.
Assuming interest compounds monthly at 4% per year.
How to set a realistic goal
Start with what you're actually saving for — a house down payment, a car, an emergency fund, a wedding, or freedom to take a career break. Pick a target amount and a realistic date. Then use this calculator to work backwards: given your starting balance and expected return, how much do you need to add each month to make it work?
Why compounding matters here too
The longer your horizon, the more work compounding does for you. A goal five years out will lean heavily on your monthly contributions; a goal 20 years out can be met with far less monthly savings because interest carries most of the load.
+What return should I assume?
A high-yield savings account today typically returns 3–5%. A long-term stock portfolio has historically returned 6–8% real. Be conservative if the goal is close.
+Can it show a negative monthly amount?
Yes — that means your starting balance alone will grow past the goal, so no additional saving is required.
Working backward from a target to a monthly habit
Instead of asking how much a deposit will grow into, this calculator flips the compound interest formula around: given a target amount, an expected rate of return, and a timeframe, it solves for the regular contribution needed to get there, accounting for the fact that money deposited earlier has more time to compound than money deposited near the deadline.
This kind of reverse calculation is often more useful in real life than a forward projection, because most people start with a goal in mind — a house deposit, a wedding, an emergency fund — and want to know what habit to build today rather than what a random monthly amount might eventually become.
Why starting sooner matters more than saving more
Because earlier contributions compound for longer, delaying the start of a savings plan by even a couple of years can require a noticeably larger monthly contribution to reach the same goal on the same original deadline. Time in the market does real work here that a bigger cheque written later can't fully replace.
Worked example
Say you want 15,000 in 5 years and expect a 5% annual return compounded monthly. Solving the annuity formula for the monthly deposit gives roughly 220 per month, versus about 250 per month if you only had 4 years left to reach the same target.
Push the timeline out to 8 years instead of 5 and the required monthly contribution drops to roughly 130 — showing how sensitive the required deposit is to timeframe, often more sensitive than to the assumed rate of return itself.
What happens if you miss a few months
Because the calculation assumes steady, uninterrupted contributions, skipping several months partway through a plan means the remaining months need a larger contribution to catch up, not just a resumption of the original amount — the shortfall compounds against you the same way regular deposits compound for you.
A caution about the assumed rate
The whole projection leans on the return rate you enter, and real investment returns bounce around year to year rather than following a smooth average — so treat the suggested monthly figure as a working estimate and revisit it periodically rather than setting it once and forgetting it. This is a planning tool, not financial advice, and doesn't account for taxes, fees or account-specific rules that could change your actual results.
Comparing lump sum versus monthly contributions
Reaching 15,000 in 5 years could also be done with a single lump-sum deposit today rather than monthly contributions: at the same 5% annual rate, an upfront deposit of roughly 11,700 would grow to the same target. Comparing the two paths shows how much extra a delayed, drip-fed contribution schedule costs in total dollars contributed versus a single early deposit, purely because of lost compounding time.
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