{"id":964,"date":"2017-03-15T18:49:33","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T22:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/?p=964"},"modified":"2017-03-16T15:13:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T19:13:15","slug":"2017-ira-contribution-savings-cheat-sheet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/2017-ira-contribution-savings-cheat-sheet\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 IRA Contribution Savings Cheat Sheet"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may be bombarded with messages to “make your IRA contribution” this time of year.<\/p>\n

For 2017, you have until April 18th tax day to finalize that contribution for the 2016 calendar year.<\/p>\n

I was curious as to whether we could calculate various contribution amounts over many different time periods to see how long it would take to accumulate $1 million in an IRA.<\/p>\n

So I fired up an Excel spreadsheet mainly because I wanted to create a matrix that shows many results in a small window.<\/p>\n

Normally I would have fired up my RetirementView software and just run some numbers in there. \u00a0But if I did that I would have to run each scenario and then log the results.<\/p>\n

Here is the “cheat sheet” that I created in Excel for 2017.<\/p>\n

\"2017<\/a>

2017 IRA Contribution Cheat Sheet<\/p><\/div>\n

To explain what this means, I first explain that the entire calculation is based on a flat 5% return. If you had my spreadsheet, you could change this return and have the matrix recalculate all the values at a different return.<\/p>\n

The left column in blue shows the number of years until retirement – this is the number of years that you “save” the amount specified in “Annual Savings”.<\/p>\n

The green “Annual Savings” columns are showing you the calculations if you save $1,000 each year or $2,000 each year…. for the time period in blue.<\/p>\n

The yellow area shows you the total amount accumulated for the time period including the compound interest of 5%.<\/p>\n

Did I get to $1 million?<\/p>\n

No. \u00a0The only place we got close was if we saved $5,500 a year for 45 years.<\/p>\n

My guess is if we increased the interest rate to 6% we would be over the top.<\/p>\n

So I did that in my Excel spreadsheet and voila the $5,500 for 45 years gets us to $1,240,295!<\/p>\n

If you’d like to get a copy of my little IRA Contribution cheat sheet spreadsheet in EXCEL format, then