Is Your New Year’s Resolution to Get Financially Fit? Try these Saving Calculators

It’s a new year, which means a fresh start. If you’re like most people, one of your new year’s resolutions is to save more money. According to a survey from Statista, in 2018 53 percent of people said their new year’s resolution was to save money. What’s even more interesting is that saving money was the top resolution! If you’re ready to turbocharge your savings and get financially fit, here are the top five savings goal calculators to help you reach your goals.

1. Smart Asset: simple savings calculator

If you want a simple savings calculator that is easy to use, check out the one on Smart Asset. You can input your initial balance, the Annual Percentage Yield (APY), how much you want to contribute and how long you want to save for.

The cool thing about this calculator is it shows how much interest you have earned and also how your current APY measures against the national average, online average and the top rate.

If you’re not getting the best APY on your savings, Smart Asset also provides suggestions on where to get the best rate.

This simple savings calculator is good for people who want to grow their savings account and want to see how their APY affects their goals.

2. Nerdwallet: savings account calculator

A savings account calculator that is easy to use and sticks to the basics is the simple savings calculator on Nerdwallet.

You can put in your balance, contributions, time to grow and APY, and voila, calculate your ending balance. If you want a savings account calculator to use day-to-day to crunch some numbers this is a good option.
This calculator can help you evaluate how much your money will grow in your current saving account. You can play around with the numbers to see how much your money can grow.

3. Unbury.me: savings goal calculator for debt repayment

Saving money and paying off debt go hand in hand. How much you can save is directly related to how much you are paying each month toward debt. Let’s face it, debt repayment can often hinder our savings goals. That’s why using Unbury.me, a debt calculator can show you how much interest you’ll pay and when you’ll pay off your debt with the avalanche or snowball method.

The avalanche method of debt repayment focuses on paying off high interest debt first. On the other hand, the snowball method focuses on the smallest balance. This calculator can show you the math on what’s the best option.

You can compare the repayment options and get a better idea of how much interest you will pay and how long it will take you to pay off your debt. Simply put in your loans, interest rate and monthly payments and let Unbury.me do its magic.

4. Ally: savings goal calculator for preparing for a family

Online bank Ally has a unique savings goal calculator for people wanting to prepare for or grow their family.

You can decide if you want to save for a home, car, vacation, baby or college. You input how much you need with how much you have saved and when you want to reach your goal.

For example, if I want to save for a vacation and will need $2,000 and have $300 saved, if I want to reach my goal in six months the Ally calculator tells me I need to save $282 per month to make that happen.

When inputting this info, the calculator also provided some benchmarks to consider. For example, it shared that “Experts say the average vacation costs $4,580 for a family of four.” Seeing these examples are helpful when you’re trying to figure out how much to save to make sure you’re on track.

5. Investor.gov: simple savings calculator for long-term goals

Investor.gov (which has a lot of great investing information) has a savings goal calculator that is best suited for long-term goals. You can put in your savings goal, your initial investment, how long you plan to save, your interest rate and also the frequency in which your interest is compounded.

So if you want to save for a down payment on a house, this could be a good calculator to use. The calculator will then show you how much you need to save each month and show you a fun graph with your contributions as well as your total savings compounded.

Get started with saving

Using these five savings account calculators you can see just how much you need to save to reach your goals. Whether it’s saving for a vacay to Cabo or preparing for a baby, paying off debt or saving for a down payment, these calculators can help you understand where you’re at and what you need to do to reach your goals.