Goal Planner

A goal planner works backwards from something you want to buy or pay for on a known date — a child's education, a marriage, a car, a house down payment — and tells you what to invest every month to get there. It inflates today's cost to the year you need the money, subtracts what your existing savings will have grown into, and converts the shortfall into a monthly SIP.

The step most people skip is the first one. A goal that costs ₹20 lakh today does not cost ₹20 lakh in ten years; at 6% inflation it costs about ₹35.8 lakh. Planning against today's price quietly guarantees a shortfall, which is why this calculator always shows the future cost alongside the SIP that actually funds it.

How is the required SIP calculated?

Three steps. First, the goal is inflated: future cost = today's cost × (1 + inflation)^years. Second, money you have already set aside grows at your expected return: future value of savings = current savings × (1 + return)^years, and the gap is future cost − that value, floored at zero. Third, the gap is turned into a monthly SIP with contributions at the start of each month (an annuity-due): SIP = gap × i ÷ (((1 + i)ⁿ − 1) × (1 + i)), where i is the monthly return and n the number of months.

Take a ₹20,00,000 goal ten years away, with 6% inflation, a 12% expected return and nothing saved yet. The future cost works out to ₹35,81,695, and since there are no savings to offset it the whole amount is the gap. Filling it needs a SIP of ₹15,416 a month for 120 months — or a single lumpsum of ₹11,53,210 invested today. Add ₹5,00,000 of existing savings to a bigger example — a ₹50,00,000 goal 15 years out at 8% inflation and 11% returns — and the ₹1,58,60,846 future cost is met by ₹23,92,295 from those savings plus a ₹29,352 monthly SIP.

How to use this calculator

• Enter what the goal costs at today's prices — the current fee, sticker price or budget, not a guess at the future number.
• Set the years until you need the money. Under three years, treat the equity return assumption with caution.
• Choose an inflation rate for that specific goal: 6% for general spending, but 8–10% for education and healthcare, which inflate far faster.
• Set the expected return to match how you will invest — 11–12% for an equity-heavy SIP over 7+ years, 7–8% for debt or hybrid funds over shorter horizons.
• Add anything already earmarked for this goal so the SIP only has to fill the real shortfall.
• Read off the monthly SIP, then open the year-by-year table to see how invested capital and growth split over time.

Planning goals in India

Education-cost inflation in India runs well ahead of headline CPI. Engineering, medical and MBA fees at private institutions have compounded at roughly 8–12% a year, and an overseas degree adds currency movement on top. Planning a college fund at 6% general inflation is one of the most common ways Indian families end up short, so set the inflation slider to match the goal rather than the economy — the same applies to weddings and to healthcare-linked goals.

SIP or lumpsum is mostly a question of what you have. A lumpsum invested today has the longest possible compounding runway and needs the smallest total outlay, which is why the calculator shows both numbers; a SIP suits salaried cash flow and averages out entry prices across market cycles. For goals under three years, the answer is neither — money you need soon belongs in a short-duration debt fund, an FD or an RD, not in equity. Finally, revisit the plan once a year: fees rise, markets deviate from your assumption, and a small annual step-up in the SIP is far easier than discovering a large gap in the final year.

Frequently asked questions