Savings goal calculator
Put in what you are saving for.
- Still to go
- Weeks
- You get there around
- At that rate, a year is
The last week counts as a whole one, because you do not reach a goal three days into the decision that gets you there.
Where the weekly number comes from
Most savings calculators ask what you can put aside out of your pay, which is a number people guess at and then miss. This calculator asks a different question: what do you already talk yourself out of in a normal week?
The delivery you decided against, the jacket in the tab you closed, the second round you skipped, the cheaper option you took instead of the one you had in mind. Added up, that is usually a larger number than people expect, and it is money that never had to come out of anywhere. That money was never spent in the first place.
If you have no idea what a normal week is, that is the honest answer to start with. Track one week, on this page or on paper, and come back with a real figure.
What the calculator does not do
There is no interest in this arithmetic, and no assumption that the weekly figure grows. The math is division: what is left to go, divided by what a week tends to produce. The simple division is deliberate, because a projection with a growth rate in it is a projection you cannot check against your own life.
What a week is actually worth
The number people underestimate is the weekly one, so here is the same arithmetic run across the range most answers fall into. Read down your goal, across to what a normal week looks like for you.
| Goal | $25 a week | $50 a week | $100 a week | $160 a week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | 20 weeks | 10 weeks | 5 weeks | 4 weeks |
| $1,200 | 48 weeks | 24 weeks | 12 weeks | 8 weeks |
| $2,400 | 96 weeks | 48 weeks | 24 weeks | 15 weeks |
| $5,000 | 200 weeks | 100 weeks | 50 weeks | 32 weeks |
| $10,000 | 400 weeks | 200 weeks | 100 weeks | 63 weeks |
The $160 column has an odd number for a reason: it is what one worked month of real decisions came to when it was written down line by line, which is recorded in full here. Twelve decisions, four of them partial, $640.89 across four weeks.
Why the calculator asks for a week
A month is the unit budgets use, and it fits this job badly. You do not make a monthly decision about a coffee. You make three or four decisions a week, and a week is short enough that you can still remember it accurately when you sit down to add it up.
A week also shows mistakes faster. If your weekly figure is wrong you find out within seven days, and the number you put in here gets better on the second try.
If the answer comes back too far away
Sometimes the honest arithmetic says four years, and there are only three things that change it. The goal can get smaller, the weekly figure can get larger, or you can accept the four years. A calculator that hides those choices behind an assumed growth rate is just being wrong more slowly.
The one that usually moves is the weekly figure, and it usually moves because recording the decisions makes you notice more of them. Most people find their real number is higher than their guess once they have tracked it for two weeks.
Keep the Diff records the decisions this calculator assumes you are making, on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Windows, Linux and Android, and adds them up toward a goal for you. There is more on the approach here.