Savings Goal Calculator

Time depends on three levers

How fast you reach a savings target comes down to your starting balance, how much you add each month, and any return the balance earns. This calculator combines all three and tells you how long the goal will take — or flags when contributions are too small to ever get there.

For freelancers, a savings goal is often a tax reserve or a runway buffer. Treating it as a fixed monthly transfer, like a bill, is what makes it happen.

Small monthly amounts compound

Even a modest return meaningfully shortens the time to a large goal, because each month's interest joins the balance and earns its own return. The earlier you start, the more the compounding does the work for you.

Irregular income needs a percentage, not a monthly amount

A fixed monthly transfer is advice designed for a salary. On freelance income it fails in exactly the wrong month: you underpay in a strong month because the number was set for an average one, and you skip entirely in a thin month, which is when skipping feels most justified and does the most damage.

Move a percentage of every payment on the day it arrives instead. The amount scales with what you actually earned, a quiet month costs you proportionally rather than absolutely, and there is no monthly decision to lose an argument with. Keep the tax reserve in a separate account from the savings goal — money that has one job and is visible doing it survives far longer than money sitting in a general balance.