Goals usually get planned one at a time. Added together, the monthly number often looks different than expected. Enter what you know. If you'd rather go deeper, each section opens up.
Annual gross income
$/yr
Used anywhere you enter a percent of pay instead of a dollar amount. Gross, before taxes and deductions.
All goals together
Every figure is a monthly amount, in today's dollars. Anything arriving once a year is shown here as its monthly equivalent.
Goal
Already going in
Additional
Additional to set aside each month
$0
What can you set aside right now?
$/mo
New money, on top of anything already going in above. If you're not ready to name a dollar amount, use a percent of gross pay instead. 10% to 15% is a common starting point, and rates above 20% shorten the timeline substantially. It is a starting point you can revise once you see the number, not a commitment. The Savings Rate Calculator works out where you already are.
How this works: Each goal is solved backward from its target. What you already have keeps compounding, anything already going toward the goal counts next, and what remains is the new transfer you would set up. Returns are entered as real returns, meaning after inflation, so every figure stays in today's purchasing power the same way the FI Number Calculator does. A goal funded in two years should not carry the same return assumption as one funded in twenty five. Your own transfers are treated as arriving at the end of each month and holding level in today's dollars, since the returns here are already after inflation. A contribution already going in once a year is treated as a single deposit at the end of each year, which is the conservative end of the range, since money contributed earlier in the year would compound a little longer than that. Every amount you set aside is rounded up to the next $25, at every size, and each total is the sum of those rounded amounts rather than a rounded sum, so the columns add up if you check them. Money already going in appears as you entered it. College is treated as one amount needed in a single year rather than spread across four, and tuition has historically risen faster than general inflation, so a lower real return or a larger target is worth considering there. This is a rough landmark for your own thinking, not a forecast, and it doesn't account for taxes, employer vesting schedules, or annual contribution limits.