How Much Should I Save Each Month?
When you’re serious about reaching financial goals, you set targets that are SMART — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. The savings goal calculator can help you:
- Break your larger goal into precise amounts that fit your budget
- Refine your goal to make sure it is attainable
- Determine when you would reach your goal
- Compare current interest rates
How to Save Money Fast
Conditions change, so experiment with the savings goal calculator to see how different parameters might affect your results. Resetting your target date, for example, could help you understand when your savings goal becomes feasible for your budget.
Interest rates change too, so plan to use the savings goal calculator frequently to see if a better interest rate is available that could help you reach your goal faster.
How to use the savings calculator
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There are four input boxes in the savings goal calculator. Simply enter your information and hit Tab to jump to the next field. Here’s what to enter:
- Your savings goal:
Enter the amount you want to save. Don’t bother with dollar signs or commas – the calculator will take care of those automatically. - Estimated time to reach your goal:
For a short-term goal you expect to reach in less than a year, tab through the Years input box and enter a number between one and 12 in the Months input box.For long-term goals, you need to enter both years and months because the Months field only accepts figures from zero to 12.
(Example: A year can be entered as 1 year and zero months or zero years and 12 months. But for a time period of one and a half years, you would enter 1 in the Years input box and 6 in the Months input box. The calculator does not accept the equivalent of 18 months.)
- Your opening deposit:
Enter the amount you currently have available as an initial balance for this savings goal. Enter zero if you don’t have any funds saved yet. - Estimated savings interest rate (APY):
By default, this input box is left blank so you can enter an interest rate — the interest rate offered by your current bank, for example.However, when you enter an opening deposit amount above, the calculator immediately checks our featured banks for their best savings account rate – so you may see that this section offers other alternatives.
If you want the calculator to show and use a featured bank’s rate in its calculation, click on one of the bank logos immediately below. This will automatically enter that bank’s current rate into this field so you can compare it against other interest rates.
Your results:
When you click on the Calculate button, your results display immediately below. The column on the left shows how much you need to save every month in order to meet your goal. The column on the right breaks that amount down into daily and weekly savings-goal figures.
You can experiment with the calculator to see how different parameters may help you make attainable savings goals. The calculator retains your initial savings goal, target date, opening deposit amount and interest rate projections. Simply change any of these amounts and click Recalculate for updated results.