Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
When you make the smart decision to start saving — whether it’s for a future purchase, to have an emergency fund or any other reason — reaching your goal can be made much easier by plugging some data into a savings calculator.
It’s also kind of fun. You get to watch how your money will grow, and you get a target date to count down to.
The Bankrate.com savings calculator, for example, asks for the basics: How much do you want to save, how many years you plan to save, what is the amount of the initial deposit you can make and what interest rate you expect.
Enter your data and you get your date. The savings calculator will tell you how much you need to deposit each month and even breaks it down into how much that translates per day, which allows you to balance your savings goals versus everyday throwaway expenses, like that quick latte you may be accustomed to buying every morning.
With a plethora of places to park your money, from CDs to bank savings accounts, it pays to research a bit to find a reasonable interest rate. A CD calculator helps you figure out an annual percentage yield, or APY, which will allow you to compare rates at competing institutions.
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Savings calculators offer a clear path on how your money can grow and give you an actual end date, and that can be a psychological boost. Knowing that the reward will come by a certain time helps many people stick to their savings plans.
And while it makes good financial sense to use a savings calculator to plan for college, buying a house or an exotic vacation, they can also be interesting to use for other goals. Another savings calculator, for instance, shows you how long it takes to save $1 million.
Share