How Long Will It Take To Save $1,000,000 at Your Current Savings Rate? – Technologist

Is becoming a millionaire a pipe dream or a realistic goal?

When you get past the emotional baggage attached to money and the word millionaire, it comes down to making a plan and pretty simple math. Team Clark developed a savings goal calculator to determine how long it will take you to put aside $1 million and how much you need to save to hit your mark.

Enter your current savings, estimated rate of return and monthly or yearly savings amount. Our calculator will tell you how much time you need to reach your million-dollar milestone.

Let’s look at an example.

How Long Will It Take To Save $1,000,000 at This Rate?

document.addEventListener(‘DOMContentLoaded’, function () {

calculate_time_to_goal();

var loanForm = document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_form’);
var inputs = loanForm.querySelectorAll(‘input, select’);

inputs.forEach(function (input) {
input.addEventListener(‘keyup’, calculate_time_to_goal);
input.addEventListener(‘change’, calculate_time_to_goal);
});

var amortSchedule = document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_monthlyBreakdownTable’);
document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_amort-link-1’).addEventListener(‘click’, function () {

if (amortSchedule.style.display === ‘none’) {
amortSchedule.style.display = ‘block’;
}
// else {
// amortSchedule.style.display = ‘none’;
// }
});

});

function calculate_time_to_goal(selectedFieldEvent) {

clark_calc_init_amount_field(selectedFieldEvent);

const savingsGoal = clark_calc_convertToNumber(document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_savingsGoal’).value);
const currentSavings = clark_calc_convertToNumber(document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_currentSavings’).value);
let rateOfReturn = parseFloat(document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_rateOfReturn’).value) / 100; // Annual rate
let additionalSavings = clark_calc_convertToNumber(document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_additionalSavings’).value);
const savingsFrequency = document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_savingsFrequency’).value;

document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_out_savingsGoal’).textContent = clarkCalculators_formatMoneyWhole(savingsGoal);
document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_out_currentSavings’).textContent = clarkCalculators_formatMoneyWhole(currentSavings);

// Convert annual rate of return to monthly
const monthlyRate = rateOfReturn / 12;

if (savingsFrequency === ‘years’) {
additionalSavings /= 12;
}

let totalSavings = currentSavings;
let totalContributed = 0;
let totalMonths = 0;

let loopCount = 0;

while (totalSavings 3000) {

document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_yearsNeeded’).textContent=”Invalid Input”;
document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_monthsNeeded’).textContent=”Invalid Input”;
document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_totalSaved’).textContent=”Invalid Input”;
document.getElementById(‘clark_stg_totalGrowth’).textContent=”Invalid Input”;

return;
}
}

const yearsNeeded = totalMonths / 12;
const preciseYearsNeeded = (Math.floor(yearsNeeded) + ((totalMonths % 12) / 12)).toFixed(2);

const totalGrowth = totalSavings – totalContributed – currentSavings;

if (preciseYearsNeeded {
const headerCell = document.createElement(‘th’);
headerCell.textContent = headerText;
headerRow.appendChild(headerCell);
});

let cumulativeGrowth = 0;
let savingsBalance = currentSavings;
let totalContributions = currentSavings;

// Loop to create a row for each month
for (let month = 1; month <= totalMonths; month++) {
const row = table.insertRow();

let previousBalance = savingsBalance;
savingsBalance += additionalSavings; // Monthly contribution
savingsBalance *= (1 + monthlyRate); // Apply monthly interest
totalContributions += additionalSavings;
cumulativeGrowth = savingsBalance – totalContributions;

// Create cells for each column
const monthCell = row.insertCell();
monthCell.textContent = 'After Month ' + month;

const contributionsCell = row.insertCell();
contributionsCell.textContent = clarkCalculators_formatMoney(totalContributions);

const growthCell = row.insertCell();
growthCell.textContent = clarkCalculators_formatMoney(cumulativeGrowth);

const balanceCell = row.insertCell();
balanceCell.textContent = clarkCalculators_formatMoney(savingsBalance);
}

// Append the table to the container
tableContainer.appendChild(table);

}

Note: This calculator is completely interactive! Enter your numbers to see how long it will take to reach your savings goals.

Let’s say you want to set aside $1 million for retirement. You’ve already saved or invested $10,000. And you can add another $500 to your portfolio every month.

As our savings goal calculator illustrates, assuming a 7% annual return, it will take you less than 35 years to reach $1 million in savings.

If you change your monthly amount to $1,500, it will take you barely more than 22 years — saving you almost 13 years of time.

If you start with $100,000 instead of $10,000 and save $500 a month, it will take you 25 years and four months to reach $1 million. Notice the interest rate, starting amount and per-month or per-year contributions all play a key role in the time it takes to reach the goal.

Clark Howard: Just Start Saving, Even in Small Amounts

Money expert Clark Howard has spent decades giving financial opinions and advice to people just like you. And his best advice is always to start small. If you aren’t saving anything, put aside $20 from your next paycheck. Then increase the amount slowly over time. Perhaps saving an additional 1% of your pay every six to 12 months.

Building a habit by doing what you can — and not by what you think you “should be” doing — is an important first step.

But many of us are naturally curious about what’s likely and also what’s possible for our futures. Our savings goal calculator is a perfect tool for those purposes.

Just remember, starting to save can be harder than getting from saving $20 every check to $100 to $250.

Final Thoughts

Becoming a millionaire, or reaching any saving and investing goal, is about consistent habits over time. Preferably a long period of time.

You can see from our savings goal calculator that even contributing $500 a month to a retirement account, and getting an average return of 7%, will get you to $1 million in the neighborhood of a typical working lifetime.

The earlier you start, the better. You can’t go back in time. But you can start today.

The post How Long Will It Take To Save $1,000,000 at Your Current Savings Rate? appeared first on Clark Howard.