Current Plan vs Saved Plan
Balance over time
Year by year
| Year | Contributed | Total contributed | Growth | Balance |
|---|
Where To Go Next
If you want to connect this growth with how much of your income you actually invest, open the Savings Rate Calculator. If you want to turn this growth into a full financial independence plan, open the FIRE Calculator. If you want to test whether your current portfolio could reach financial independence by retirement age, try the Coast FIRE Calculator. If you want to compare how much waiting can cost, try the Started Investing Earlier Calculator. If you want a real broad-market return snapshot to compare against your assumptions, open the Global Index Fund Return Tracker. If you only want to estimate the portfolio size your spending requires, the 4% Rule Calculator is the quickest next step.
Reproduce a 10-year example
Start with 10,000, contribute 100 at the end of each month, and use 6% annual return, 0% inflation and 10 years. The ending balance is 34,156: 10,000 starting capital, 12,000 new contributions and approximately 12,156 growth.
At 0% return and 0% inflation, the same plan ends at 22,000. This provides a simple check: with no investment growth, the final balance must equal the starting balance plus all deposits.
How compounding is calculated
The monthly rate is (1 + annual real return)1/12 − 1. Growth is applied before each end-of-month deposit. An effective annual return of 6% therefore produces 6% growth over twelve months on money invested at the start, before new deposits.
We calculate the real annual return as (1 + return before inflation) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. All displayed amounts are in today’s purchasing power. Contributions stay constant in real terms; the cash amount would need to rise with inflation. See the inflation example.
Compare a plan, rather than one forecast
Save your current inputs, change one assumption and compare both balances on the chart. Lowering return or increasing inflation reduces purchasing power. Adding a regular contribution changes the money you invest directly.
“Doubling” includes contributions as well as growth. It is not the investment’s standalone rate of return. The model uses smooth monthly growth and excludes separate taxes, fees and market volatility.
Source and next step
For an independent explanation of compounding, see the SEC’s Investor.gov calculator. Match annual versus monthly compounding and deposit timing before comparing outputs. Our methodology gives the exact convention.