Savings Goal Calculator

How to work out how much to save each month

Four things decide the answer: what you need, what you already have, how long you have, and whether the money earns anything. With no interest it is one line of arithmetic. Subtract what you have saved from your goal, then divide by the whole calendar months between today and your target date. A $5,000 goal with $500 already put by and 18 months to go is $4,500 over 18 months, or $250 a month.

Add a rate and the divisor changes. Instead of dividing by the month count you divide by the annuity factor, which is the month count adjusted for the fact that early contributions have longer to earn. A $10,000 goal with $2,000 saved, 24 months to run and a 4% annual rate needs $314.07 a month rather than the $333.34 you would need at 0%. The rate is doing about $19 a month of the work for you.

This page assumes your contribution lands at the end of each month, with the last one on your target date, and it compounds the annual rate monthly. Bank calculators often assume deposits at the start of the period and compound daily, which is why our monthly figure can sit a few cents to a couple of dollars above theirs on identical inputs. Neither is wrong; they are different conventions, and ours is the conservative one. We also round the monthly figure up to the cent, which buys a small overshoot at the end of the plan and spares you a shortfall in the final month. On that $10,000 example the round-up costs you ten cents across two years.

When the monthly number is more than you can manage

There are three levers and only three: push the date out, lower the target, or find more money each month. Most people reach straight for the third, which is the hardest of the three and usually the one that fails by March. The first two are free.

Use the "what I can save each month" field to see what the first lever actually costs. Take the same $10,000 goal with $2,000 already saved and a date 24 months out, then enter $200 a month. You are $114.07 short of the target date, and at $200 you arrive in 37 months at a 4% rate, or 40 months at 0%. That is 13 months later than you wanted, and the three-month spread between the two rates is a fair picture of what a rate is worth on a goal this size: helpful, but not the thing carrying the plan. The contributions are.

On the third lever, the cheapest money is usually already leaving your account. The subscription cost calculator totals what your recurring charges cost per year, and one or two cancellations often cover a contribution outright. If your income moves month to month, set the contribution against a baseline you can hold in a bad month rather than an average one; the irregular income budget calculator works that baseline out. And if you are paid fortnightly, the biweekly paycheck budget calculator splits the monthly figure across paychecks so the transfer lines up with payday.

Where to keep the money while you save

Keep goal money out of the account you spend from. A single balance doing two jobs is a balance you will dip into, and the dip never feels like a decision at the time. A separate account, even one at the same bank, turns every withdrawal into a deliberate act.

Match the account to the horizon. Money you need within a few years belongs somewhere instant-access and stable, where the balance on the day you need it is the balance you planned for. Investment returns are a different trade: the long-run average is higher, and the balance can also be down on your target date, which is exactly the outcome a dated goal cannot absorb. Numbers for scale, never a promise: high-yield savings accounts advertised roughly 4% through 2026 against a national average nearer 0.6%, so the gap between the account you drifted into and the one you chose is real. Rates move. Go and check yours, and trust that over a figure on any page, this one included.

One boundary worth drawing: dated lumpy bills, such as annual insurance or car registration, are not savings goals. They are known costs with known dates, and they work better as a separate set-aside per bill, divided by the months until each one lands, than folded into one big goal you then have to raid.

Tracking the goal after you have the number

A monthly figure is a plan, not a result. The failure mode is not knowing where you stand in month seven, when the deadline is still far enough away to feel abstract and you have quietly missed two contributions.

Budget44 handles that part. A saving goal has a name, a target amount and a deadline; deposits and withdrawals are recorded as real transactions against a real account, so the goal balance and your net worth stay in step. A progress ring shows saved against target with a "Reached" state, alongside remaining to target, percent complete and days to the deadline. Set the contribution up as a recurring transaction and it appears on the calendar as a projection before it happens, so a month you cannot afford it shows up before it arrives. Vacation, car, house, wedding and emergency fund are the presets, the same five on this page.

The honest part: everything is entered by hand and stored on the device. There is no account, no cloud sync and no bank connection, and amounts are held as integer minor units so the totals stay exact to the cent. This calculator works the same way, running entirely in your browser with nothing sent to a server.

Got your monthly number? Track saving goals in Budget44.