When Will I Reach My Savings Goals?

Want to see how long it will take you to reach your savings goals?

This calculator will estimate how long you need to save to reach your goal. Simply enter your savings goal, how much you already have set aside, how frequently you plan to add deposits, the amount of your deposits, and the interest rate you expect to earn on your savings.

The calculator will automatically update the results when you change any of the input fields.

For your convenience current savings rates for high-interest savings, money market accounts and CDs are published below the calculator.

Make Your Money Work Harder!

Is your bank offering competitive rates which beat inflation and taxes? If not, you may be able to earn a better rate & make your money work harder by shopping around.

The following table lists currently available rates for savings accounts, money market accounts and CDs.

What Compounding Frequency is Used?

What Do Banks Use on Savings Accounts?

Most banks typically compound interest daily on savings accounts, adding the amount accrued once each month based on the daily average account balance throughout the preceeding month.

How This Calculator Works

To keep the math simple & straightforward, this calculator compounds interest at the same periodicity at which money is added.

This means if money is frequently added then the annual percentage yield may be higher than the associated annual percentage rate.

APR vs APY

At low rates of interest the compounding frequency does not have a big impact on the annual percentage yield APY.

The following chart shows that at 1% APR the compounding frequency has less than 1% impact on the returns.

Taxes and inflation have a large impact on both savings & spending power.

Compounding Frequency	1% APR	2% APR	3% APR	5% APR	10% APR
Annual	1.000000% APY	2.000000% APY	3.000000%	5.000000%	10.000000%
Semiannual	1.002500% APY	2.010000% APY	3.022500%	5.062500%	10.250000%
Quarterly	1.003756% APY	2.015050% APY	3.033919%	5.094534%	10.381289%
Bimonthly	1.004176% APY	2.016741% APY	3.037751%	5.105331%	10.426042%
Monthly	1.004596% APY	2.018436% APY	3.041596%	5.116190%	10.471307%
Semimonthly	1.004806% APY	2.019284% APY	3.043523%	5.121642%	10.494134%
Biweekly	1.004823% APY	2.019350% APY	3.043671%	5.122062%	10.495895%
Weekly	1.004920% APY	2.019742% APY	3.044562%	5.124584%	10.506479%
Daily	1.005003% APY	2.020078% APY	3.045326%	5.126750%	10.515578%
Continuous	1.005017% APY	2.020134% APY	3.045453%	5.127110%	10.517092%

You generally need to either have high rates of interest (in excess of 10%) or need to save money for a long time (decades or more) for compounding frequency to have a big impact on interest.

Converting Deposits From One Frequency to Another

If you are depositing $51 every 17 days, but your bank compounds interest daily, you can simply convert your deposit amount into the equivalent amount associated with the compounding frequency. For example, 51/17 = $3 der day, so you can enter $3 and select daily in the above and that will tell you how long it will take to save toward a goal even though you were making $51 payments every 17 days.

Here is a table on how to convert from various periodicities. Convert the amount from a periodicity across the top by sliding down to the desired periodicty in the bottom.

	Daily	Weekly	Biweekly	Semimonthly	Monthly	Bimonthly	Quarterly	Semiannual	Annual
Daily	-	divide by 7	divide by 14	divide by 15.21	divide by 30.42	divide by 60.83	divide by 91.25	divide by 182.5	divide by 365
Weekly	multiply by 7	-	divide by 2	divide by 2.17	divide by 4.345	divide by 8.69	divide by 13.03	divide by 26.07	divide by 52.14
Biweekly	multiply by 14	multiply by 2	-	divide by 1.086	divide by 2.17	divide by 4.345	divide by 6.518	divide by 13.03	divide by 26.07
Semimonthly	multiply by 15.21	multiply by 2.17	multiply by 1.086	-	divide by 2	divide by 4	divide by 6	divide by 12	divide by 24
Monthly	multiply by 30.42	multiply by 4.345	multiply by 2.1845	mutiply by 2	-	divide by 2	divide by 3	divide by 6	divide by 12
Bimonthly	multiply by 60.83	multiply by 8.69	multiply by 4.369	multiply by 4	mutiply by 2	-	divide by 1.5	divide by 3	divide by 6
Quarterly	multiply by 91.25	multiply by 13.03	multiply by 6.55	multiply by 6	multiply by 3	multiply by 1.5	-	divde by 2	divide by 4
Semiannual	multiply by 182.5	multiply by 26.07	multiply by 13.03	multiply by 12	multiply by 6	multiply by 3	multiply by 2	-	divide by 2
Annual	multiply by 365	multiply by 52.14	multiply by 26.07	multiply by 24	multiply by 12	multiply by 6	multiply by 4	multiply by 2	-

Examples

• Convert $10 daily into a monthly amount. $10 * 30.42 = $304.20 per month.
• Convert $2,000 annually into a weekly amount. $2,000 / 52.14 = $38.36 per week.
• Convert $200 biweekly into an annual amount. $200 * 26.07 = $5,214 per year.

Inflation & Income Taxes Have a Massive Impact on Interest Income

For most savers, the difference between APR & APY is quite inconsequential relative to the impact of inflation & taxes.

The difference between APR & APY might cost a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the total interest earned, whereas inflation typically eats at least a percent or two per year (of the ENTIRE amount saved) while taxes often eat 25% or more of the interest earned each year.

The following table shows the impact of compounding frequency on a $10,000 savings at a 2% interest rate, saved over the course of a decade. It also shows how a 2% rate of inflation & a 25% income tax rate have a far bigger impact on total savings than compounding frequency does.

	Continuous	Daily	Monthly	Annually
Future Savings	$12,214.03	$12,213.96	$12,211.99	$12,189.94
Interest Earned	$2,214.03	$2,213.96	$2,211.99	$2,189.94
APY	2.020134%	2.020078%	2.018436%	2.000000%
Taxes Paid	$553.51	$553.49	$553.00	$547.49
Interest Earned After Tax	$1,660.52	$1,660.47	$1,659.00	$1,642.46
Savings After Tax	$11,660.52	$11,660.47	$11,659.00	$11,642.46
Real Savings After Inflation	$9,527.49	$9,527.45	$9,526.25	$9,512.74

From the above table you can see that over the course of a decade the difference in compounding frequency on $10,000 of savings might only be $25 or less total, whereas income taxes cost over $500 & inflation ate nearly $2,000 of spending power.

In other words, income taxes had over 20 times the impact as compounding frequency did and inflation had over 80 times the impact. And these numbers are actually a bit under-stated for many investors.

• Income taxes were withdrawn from the above amounts after a decade of compounding. If income taxes were paid on the gains annually then income taxes would have prevented the money from compounding as quickly & would have ate even more of the returns.
• Many core living costs including homes, healthcare and a college education have vastly exceeded the broader general rate of inflation.

Calculate Future Value

You can use our future value calculator to see what a significant impact inflation & taxes have on interest earnings. The calculator makes it quick & easy to subtract income taxes & then convert nominal dollars into real spending power.

We also offer additional savings calculators which allow you to alter the interest compounding periodicity and to accounts for the impacts of taxes and inflation.

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