easyMcalc

easyMcalc · https://easymcalc.com/savings-calculator/

Nominal annual rate, not APYMethod checked 11 September 2026

Savings calculator

An arithmetic projection, not a forecast and not investment advice. How these figures are worked out

You will have $39,794.11 Full breakdown

Your savings plan
The nominal yearly rate, up to four decimals. The compounding frequency is the field below, so this is not an APY or an AER.
Up to 100 years, which is 1200 months.
Interest is earned every month and added to the balance on this cycle. Daily compounding is not offered: it needs a day-count convention that differs by bank.

Where the plan gets you

Final balance $39,794.11 after 10 years

  • Money paid in $32,000
  • Interest $7,794.11
Final balance
$39,794.11
Paid in after the start
$30,000
Interest earned
$7,794.11

Where the balance comes from

  • Money paid in
  • Interest
Balance over time, split into money paid in and interest earned Over 10 years, $32,000 paid in earns $7,794.11 of interest, for a final balance of $39,794.11. Year 1: paid in $3,000, earned $137.10, balance $5,137.10Year 2: paid in $3,000, earned $264.90, balance $8,402Year 3: paid in $3,000, earned $397.92, balance $11,799.92Year 4: paid in $3,000, earned $536.37, balance $15,336.29Year 5: paid in $3,000, earned $680.44, balance $19,016.73Year 6: paid in $3,000, earned $830.38, balance $22,847.11Year 7: paid in $3,000, earned $986.44, balance $26,833.55Year 8: paid in $3,000, earned $1,148.86, balance $30,982.41Year 9: paid in $3,000, earned $1,317.89, balance $35,300.30Year 10: paid in $3,000, earned $1,493.81, balance $39,794.11

Year 1Year 10

The lower band is everything paid in; the band above it is interest. Hover a year for its figures.

Year by year

PeriodPaid inInterestPaid in so farBalance
Year 1$3,000$137.10$5,000$5,137.10
Year 2$3,000$264.90$8,000$8,402
Year 3$3,000$397.92$11,000$11,799.92
Year 4$3,000$536.37$14,000$15,336.29
Year 5$3,000$680.44$17,000$19,016.73
Year 6$3,000$830.38$20,000$22,847.11
Year 7$3,000$986.44$23,000$26,833.55
Year 8$3,000$1,148.86$26,000$30,982.41
Year 9$3,000$1,317.89$29,000$35,300.30
Year 10$3,000$1,493.81$32,000$39,794.11

What a savings plan actually looks like

Most savings questions are not about interest. They are about whether a monthly amount, kept up for a few years, gets you where you want to be. The interest is a bonus on top, and at ordinary deposit rates over ordinary horizons it is a smaller bonus than people expect.

The split bar on this page is there to make that visible rather than to hide it. Save two hundred and fifty a month for ten years at four per cent and the large majority of the final balance is money you put in. That is not a disappointing result; it is what saving is. Interest starts to matter once the balance is large and the horizon is long, which is the investing question rather than the savings one.

Where the rate comes from

This page does not know what your bank pays, and it will not guess. Deposit rates differ by account type, by balance tier, by whether the rate is an introductory one that reverts after twelve months, and by country.

Two things are worth checking before you trust any rate you type in. Whether it is an advertised yield, which already includes compounding, or a nominal rate, which does not. And whether it is a bonus rate with an expiry date, in which case projecting it over ten years overstates the result substantially.

In the United States the national average rates for savings accounts and certificates of deposit are published monthly by the FDIC, which is a reasonable sanity check on whether an offer is competitive. Filling this field from published averages is planned; for now it is yours to enter.

Emergency fund first

One thing this calculator cannot model is the reason most savings plans fail, which is not the rate but the withdrawal. A plan that has to be raided every eighteen months for a car repair never compounds at all.

The conventional answer is to hold three to six months of spending in an account you can reach immediately, and only then start a plan like the one on this page. Running this calculator on your monthly spending rather than your savings target tells you how long that takes.

Common questions

How do I work out what I need to save each month for a target?

By hand, for now: adjust the deposit until the final balance reaches your target. Solving it directly is a planned addition, and it is easy to add because the final balance rises steadily with the deposit, so the answer can be found by bracketing it.

Should I save monthly or yearly?

Monthly, if the choice is yours. The same annual amount split into twelve deposits spends more time in the account, so it earns more, and the difference grows with the rate. The deposit frequency field shows the gap.

Why does the balance not move in the first month?

With yearly compounding, interest is earned every month but only added to the balance on the anniversary. The year-by-year table shows the interest for each year; the month it lands is the last one.

Is a certificate of deposit worth it?

That is a question about the rate difference and about whether you can commit the money, not about the arithmetic. Run the calculator at both rates and see what the gap is worth over the term; then decide whether locking the money away for that term is worth that amount.

Is anything I type stored?

No. The calculation runs in your browser, nothing is sent anywhere, and the access log for this site drops the query string.

Sources

There is no official table behind a savings projection. What these documents pin down is the measure this tool deliberately does not compute, the one that folds compounding into a single advertised number:

How these figures are worked out

The balance is built month by month in whole cents rather than from a power formula. Each month earns the annual rate divided by twelve on the balance at that moment, rounded to the nearest cent in a single division, and that interest waits without earning anything itself until the compounding date folds it into the balance. The last month of the term always compounds, so a term that ends part way through a period is still paid what it earned. This is why yearly compounding here does not pay a full year of interest on a deposit made in December, and why the figures can sit a few cents from a textbook formula that rounds only once.

It leaves out tax on interest, fees, inflation and any withdrawal along the way.