Projected value with contributions and inflation adjustment.
What it's for
See what regular investing could grow to if it earned a return you choose. It is one scenario from your assumption, not a promise of what you will have.
Before you start
Have the amount you would start with, what you plan to add and how often, and a yearly return to assume. The return is your own guess; the page cannot know what an investment will earn.
Enter what you start with and what you add
Type the lump sum you begin with in Initial investment (0 if none) and the amount you add each time in Contribution, digits only. Then choose Monthly, Quarterly or Annually in How often.
Set the return and the time
Type the yearly return to assume in Return % a year — 8 for 8% — and the number of years in Years. Try a cautious figure as well as a hopeful one; the gap between them tells you more than either.
Add the optional extras
Fill in Rise % a year if you will add a little more each year, as after a raise. Fill in Inflation % to see the result in today's pesos too. Leave either blank to skip it.
Press Calculate, then open the table
Press Calculate; the answer already updates as you type, and the button brings it into view. Press Show the year by year to see the figures for each year.
Reading the result
If it goes wrong
An initial amount plus regular contributions, compounding at a return you assume. The contribution can rise each year, which is what usually happens when your income does, and the result can be shown in today's pesos so you can see what it would actually buy.
Every figure here rests on one number you supplied and nobody can know: the return. The tool applies it to every year without variation, which no real investment does. It is an illustration of a scenario, and the year-by-year table is there so you can see the shape of it rather than only the total.
No. It is arithmetic on an assumption you supplied. It takes the return you typed and applies it every single year without variation, which is not how any real investment behaves. Actual returns move year to year, can be negative for years at a stretch, and the order they arrive in changes the outcome. Treat the figure as an illustration of one scenario, not a forecast.
That is the question the whole projection rests on, and this tool cannot answer it. Whatever number you choose is an assumption about the future, not a rate anyone has promised you. Try a pessimistic figure alongside your hopeful one — the gap between the two is usually more informative than either.
It discounts the projected value back into today’s pesos, so you can see what the amount would actually buy rather than what it says on paper. It does not change the peso figure — inflation is applied to the result, not netted off the return, because contributions made later have been exposed to inflation for less time.
For increasing your contribution each year, usually in step with a raise. It applies at each year boundary and only to the contribution — the portfolio does not get a bonus. Even a modest rise compounds noticeably over a long period.
The Savings Calculator models a rate you were quoted, like a time deposit, and can work backwards from a goal. This one models a return you are assuming, lets the contribution grow, and shows the result in today’s money. The maths overlaps; the honesty about what is known does not.
Each period the balance earns the return, then the contribution is added. At each year boundary the contribution itself rises. A rising contribution has no closed form, so the projection is walked period by period — the same walk that produces the table.
Not netted off the return. Subtracting inflation from the return rate gives a different and wronger number, because contributions made later have been exposed to inflation for less time than the initial amount.
Whether the return you entered is achievable. Whether the order the returns arrive in ruins the outcome — a bad first decade and a bad last decade do not cost the same. Whether fees, taxes or a withdrawal you did not plan for eat the difference. This is one line through a very wide range of possibilities.
Important
This is a projection from a return you chose, not a forecast, and it is not investment advice. Returns are not guaranteed, real returns vary year to year and can be negative, and past performance says nothing about future performance. Nothing you type here is sent to our servers — the calculation runs entirely in your browser.
