Skip to content
Valmonk

Time

When does the money start earning more than you put in?

The crossover year, and what the final figure is actually worth.

Compounding

₹
From year 11 the growth is larger than everything you have put in. The final figure buys what ₹30,72,969 buys today.
Out-earns you from year
11
  • what you put in10%
  • what the rate added90%
  • Monthly ₹5,000
  • Years 30
Valmonkvalmonk.com/compound · not advice

The link carries your numbers, so whoever opens it sees this exact result. Nothing is saved on our side.

Your numbers, your assumptions. Not advice. We can't see the rest of your life. What that means.

The same amount every month, for the whole stretch

years

Time does more of the work here than the amount does. The presets are the same money started at different ages.

% a year

Your assumption, not a forecast. Nothing here predicts what any investment would return.

What this assumes

All editable. Change one and the answer changes with it.

A lump sum already in place, if any. It compounds for the whole stretch, which is why it counts for more than the same amount added later.

% a year

Used to say what the final figure buys in today's money. A large number thirty years out is not as large as it looks.

How this works, and where the numbers come from

The crossover is the number that matters

Every compounding calculator shows you a total. The useful figure is the year the growth first exceeds everything you have contributed, because that is when the arrangement starts doing the work instead of you. Before it, you are the engine. After it, time is.

Ten years earlier is not ten years more

Tap through the three starting ages. The same amount every month, the same rate, the same finish, and the gap between starting at 18 and starting at 28 is far larger than the difference in what you paid in. That is the whole argument, and it is easier to see in two taps than in any amount of prose.

A large number a long way out is smaller than it looks

Thirty years of inflation does to the final figure roughly what thirty years of growth did to the contributions, in the opposite direction. The today's-money line under the result is there so the number you plan around is the one that means something.

Educational, not advice. Your numbers under assumptions you set.

Put this tool on your own site

Free, for any site. One line of HTML, no account, and nothing that tracks your readers.

Get the snippet
  • What a return is really worth

    Tax and inflation, taken off the same assumption.

  • SIP & lumpsum

    The plain total, if that is what you came for.