Savings calculators
What a deposit grows to, and how long a pot lasts.
Money set aside earns in a way that is quietly asymmetric: deposits are quoted in the number that flatters them and loans in the number that does not, because two different laws require it. These six calculators cover what a deposit grows to, what a rate actually yields once compounding is counted, and how long a pot lasts when money is coming out of it rather than going in.
6 calculators
- CD calculator What a certificate of deposit pays by maturity.
- Savings withdrawal How long a pot lasts at a given monthly draw.
- APY and APR What a rate is worth once compounding is counted.
- Money market Growth on a variable rate, with the variability stated.
- Savings goal What to put aside monthly to reach an amount by a date.
- CD ladder Staggered maturities, compared honestly against one long term.
What every savings calculator here assumes
These apply across the cluster. Each page repeats the ones that bear on its own result, so you never have to come back here to read a figure.
- Contributions land at the start of the period
- Money you add is treated as arriving at the start, so it earns that period of interest. Money you withdraw leaves at the end, after interest. Both are the conservative reading, and most calculators do not say which they use.
- Yields are APY, not the nominal rate
- Where a yield is quoted it is the annual percentage yield, calculated as Regulation DD specifies. The compounding frequency is printed next to every result, because a yield with an unstated frequency is not checkable.
- The rate is held constant
- A savings rate is variable in reality. These pages hold it fixed because projecting a rate path is a forecast, and they say so rather than hiding it.
- Figures are before tax
- Interest on a taxable account is ordinary income. Nothing here subtracts it, because the rate that applies depends on your return.
What they deliberately leave out
Every exclusion here is a real cost or a real rule. They are left out because including them would need information this site does not have, and a figure built on a guess is worth less than a figure with a stated gap.
- Tax on interest, which is reported on a 1099-INT and taxed as ordinary income.
- Inflation. Every figure is in nominal dollars, so a balance twenty years out does not buy what it appears to.
- Rate changes, promotional rates, and tiered rates that pay differently above a threshold.
- Early withdrawal penalties on certificates, which are set by the bank and vary widely.