Find out how long it will take to reach a savings target — or how much you need to put away each month to hit it by a certain date.
Progress
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🔒 Tested: nothing you enter or upload leaves your browser. How we test
Updated 1 October 2026. Results are estimates for information only, not financial, tax, legal or investment advice. Actual rates, fees, taxes and rules vary. How our calculators work
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How to use the Savings Goal Calculator
- Choose a mode: “How long will it take?” or “How much per month?”.
- Enter your goal amount, what you’ve already saved and the interest rate (APY) your savings account pays.
- Enter your monthly deposit (mode 1) or your deadline in months (mode 2) and read the result.
About this tool
Saving toward a target — an emergency fund, a house deposit, a car, a wedding — is a simple future-value problem. Your current balance grows with interest, and each monthly deposit grows from the day it’s made. With a monthly rate i, starting amount P, deposit c and n months: FV = P(1+i)n + c × ((1+i)n − 1) / i.
Mode 1 solves that equation for n (the number of months); mode 2 solves it for c (the deposit). Interest helps but for short goals the deposit does almost all the work — for a 2-year goal at 4%, interest adds only about 4% to what you save yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What interest rate should I use?
The APY of the account the money will sit in — a high-yield savings account, money market fund or fixed-term deposit. Use 0 if it’s a current account that pays nothing.
Does it account for inflation?
No — it works in today’s money. For goals more than a few years out, set the goal a little higher to allow for prices rising.
How big should an emergency fund be?
A common guideline is 3–6 months of essential expenses. Enter that total as your goal to see how long it takes at your deposit rate.
Are deposits made at the start or end of each month?
End of month, which is the conservative assumption. Depositing at the start of the month earns slightly more interest.