Time
When does the money start earning more than you put in?
The crossover year, and what the final figure is actually worth.
- 11
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
Time does more of the work here than the amount does. The presets are the same money started at different ages.
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.
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 snippetNext question
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.