⛱ Sinking fund calculator

A sinking fund calculator for anything you own.

A sinking fund is money set aside gradually toward a cost you can already see coming, so it’s ready when the bill arrives instead of landing on a credit card. Budget Forecast builds one automatically for your home, your car, or anything else with a future price tag and a rough date, then adds them together the moment you’re tracking more than one. You don’t need a spreadsheet.

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Free to use · No account needed · About 5 minutes to set up

The idea

What a sinking fund calculator does

It isn’t a rule of thumb or a flat percentage. It’s the real cost of each thing you own, spread out and added up.

What a sinking fund actually is

It’s money set aside a little at a time for a cost you already know is coming: a roof, a furnace, a new car. Instead of finding the cash all at once when the bill arrives, you’ve been paying toward it gradually the whole time.

Built for you, not by hand

You don’t build an amortization table or work out how much to grow a price for inflation yourself. Add what you own and roughly how much life is left on each thing, and Budget Forecast works out the monthly number.

One number, however many things

A sinking fund for one thing is a single monthly figure, and that’s free for as long as you like. Keep a budget for the house and one for the car too, and combining them into one household number is what Pro adds.

Inside the calculation

Every item gets its own sinking fund

This is the same method behind every Budget Forecast plan, run for each thing you’re saving for. Every item gets a due date and a future cost, and the plan works backward from there to a monthly amount that has it covered right on schedule.

  • ✓Each item’s cost grown for inflation, right up to the date it’s due
  • ✓That cost spread evenly across every month until then
  • ✓A live number that adjusts as time passes or as you save
The Budget Forecast summary report with the monthly number
Quick questions

A few sinking fund questions

The short version of how it works and what it’s for.

What is a sinking fund?
A sinking fund is money you set aside a little at a time toward a cost you already know is coming, so it’s ready when the bill arrives instead of catching you off guard. A new roof, a car, a big trip: anything with a future price tag and a rough date fits. Budget Forecast works out the monthly amount for you automatically and keeps it current as time passes.
How is a sinking fund different from an emergency fund?
A sinking fund covers the costs you can see coming: a roof, a car, a big trip, each on its own timeline. An emergency fund covers the ones you can’t, a job loss, a burst pipe, a repair nobody planned for. They answer different questions, and most households end up wanting both.
Do I need a spreadsheet to run a sinking fund?
No. Budget Forecast does the arithmetic itself: it grows each cost for inflation to its due date, spreads that across the months until then, and adds every item into one monthly number. Add what you own and roughly how much life is left on each thing, and the number appears. It also ages with the real calendar on its own, so you won’t need to update a spreadsheet by hand as time passes.

Start your sinking fund today

Open the planner, add what you’re saving for, and see your monthly number in a few minutes.

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