Savings Goal Calculator

A savings goal has three moving parts: what you already have, what you add each month, and what the account pays while the money sits there. This calculator runs them month by month. Each month the balance earns one-twelfth of the annual yield — the APY, which is the rate after compounding — and then your deposit lands. The count stops the month the balance first touches the goal, and the last deposit is trimmed to whatever the goal still needed, so the receipt's two halves always add up: what you deposited plus what the account paid equals the goal, to the cent.

Interest is the small part for most goals, and it is worth seeing why. The account pays on the balance, and a goal measured in a year or two never holds a large balance for long — it starts small and arrives the moment it gets big. On the defaults, a 4% account contributes $501.96 of the $10,000 over 27 months; you deposit the other $9,498.04. What the rate mainly buys on a short goal is a couple of months off the date, not a smaller bill.

The optional date turns the question around. Give it a number of months and it solves for the level monthly deposit that lands exactly on the goal then, with the starting balance earning interest alongside. The receipt shows that figure against what you put in now — more a month, or less — and the interest the account earns at that pace, so the trade is in your own dollars: a sooner date costs more each month and earns less interest on the way; a later one does the reverse.

A worked example

Take the defaults: a $10,000 goal, $1,500 already saved, $300 a month, in an account paying 4%. The balance reaches $10,000 in the 27th month — 2 years 3 months — and over that stretch the account pays $501.96 in interest, so the deposits add up to $9,498.04. Now give it a date. To have the $10,000 in 18 months takes $453.99 a month, which is $153.99 more than now, and the account earns $328.30 on the way — less, because the money is in it for less time. Stretch the date to 36 months and the deposit drops to $217.63, $82.37 less a month, while the interest rises to $665.68. Same goal, three paces, and the receipt prices each one.

Common questions

Where should the money sit while I save it? This page only describes the mechanics. A savings account's APY is credited monthly on whatever the balance is, so the interest is small at the start and grows as the pile does — on the defaults, a 4% account earns $501.96 of the $10,000 goal and you deposit the other $9,498.04, arriving in 2 years 3 months. At 0% you deposit every dollar and the same goal takes 2 years 5 months. A high-yield savings account is the usual home for money with a date on it: the balance can't fall, and the APY is the whole return. That article explains what the term means and what FDIC insurance covers.

Is this the same as an emergency fund calculator? Same arithmetic, different target. An emergency fund's target is worked out from your essential monthly expenses times months of coverage, and the emergency fund calculator does that step for you and then runs this same time-to-goal projection. This page takes any target you name — a down payment, a car, a trip, a year of tuition — and asks only how much, how much a month, and by when.

Saving for a down payment — what goal do I enter? The down payment plus the closing costs you expect to pay in cash. Worked through this calculator: a $30,000 goal with $5,000 saved and $800 a month at 4% is reached in 2 years 6 months, with $1,721.85 of it earned as interest; to have it in 24 months instead takes $985.63 a month. The affordability calculator works the other direction — from your income and debts to the house price and down payment that fit — so the goal you enter here can be the one it gives you.

Assumes a fixed yield credited monthly and a deposit that never misses. A savings account's APY changes with the market, and a real account credits interest on its own schedule, so your statement may differ by a few dollars. General information about how the arithmetic works, not personalized financial advice. Found an error? Tell us and we'll fix it.