Retirement Savings Calculator

Corpus = current savings × (1 + r)ⁿ + future value of the yearly contributions (with optional step-up and employer match). Target mode solves the monthly contribution that reaches your goal.

Watching the pot grow

Retirement savings come from two places: the money you put in, and the growth that compounds on top. Over a long horizon the growth usually dwarfs the contributions — that’s the whole point of starting early. This projects your current savings and monthly contributions forward at your expected return, and splits the result so you can see exactly how much is yours-paid-in versus market growth.

Worked example — $50,000 saved, $800/month, 7% return, 30 years: Corpus ≈ $1.29M. Of that, about $338k is contributed and $949k is growth. Growth is nearly three times what you paid in — compounding doing the heavy lifting.

Two ways to use it

Project mode answers “where do I end up?” — enter a plan and see the corpus. Target mode answers the reverse — “what must I save?” — enter the nest egg you want and it solves the monthly contribution to reach it in your timeframe. Use the advanced options for a contribution that rises each year (a step-up, which closes gaps surprisingly fast), an employer match (free money that compounds like the rest), and inflation, which shows the corpus in today’s spending power.

What it does and doesn’t do

This is the accumulation half — getting to the nest egg. It doesn’t check whether the corpus lasts through retirement; for that, the Retirement Calculator adds the drawdown phase. It assumes a steady annual return, so it smooths over the ups and downs of real markets, and it’s before tax — though contributions to tax-advantaged accounts grow the same way here. Treat the number as a projection to revisit, not a promise.