Retirement Savings: How to Project Your Future Fund
A retirement projection turns today's savings and a monthly habit into a future fund estimate. Here is how to read that number sensibly.
What is the Retirement Savings Calculator?
This calculator combines two parts: your current savings, grown with monthly compounding, and your future monthly contributions, each earning interest for the months that remain. It uses a monthly rate taken from the annual rate you enter, and the total number of months until retirement. The result is a projection, not a guarantee, because real returns vary.
How to use it
- Enter what you have saved so far and how much you will add each month.
- Enter the expected annual return and the years until retirement.
- Press Calculate to see the projected fund, your total contributions and the growth.
Worked example
Start with 10,000, add 200 a month at 6% per year for 20 years. The tool gives a projected fund of 125,510.22, total contributions of 58,000 and growth of 67,510.22.
How is a retirement fund projected?
You grow your current savings forward at the assumed return, and you grow each monthly contribution forward for the time remaining after it is paid in. Adding those two parts gives the projected fund. Subtracting everything you put in leaves the growth, which shows how much compounding contributed over the whole period.
Frequently asked questions
Does this include inflation or tax?
No, the result is in nominal terms before inflation and tax. For planning, compare it with the future cost of living rather than today's prices.
Why does starting early matter so much?
Because each contribution has more months to earn interest, and that interest then earns interest itself. Extra years at the start usually beat larger contributions later.