Using the Savings Plan Excel Program

This program is set up for young kids and adults to see their investment opportunity grow right before their eyes. All you have to do is enter your initial investment in Cell B6, which is the initial amount of money you have to start saving. In cell B7 you enter how much money you can save each year and pledge to put into the account. In cell B9 you place how many years you will be able to save before you would enter college and have to start taking money out. Our program will run for anywhere between 1-18 years. The toughest of the inputs is the expected yearly return. The stock market expects to return 9-11% average over the long run, but yearly returns can be a wide range of numbers. This number is the amount of money another person is going to pay you to hold your money for you, or how much you can gain by investing in a certain stock. It is set to accept the number as a percent and will convert your whole number for you. Once you have all the numbers entered, the program will show you how much money you will have at the end of every year and design a chart of your money growing.

As you can see it is nice to see your money grow but the toughest part of the process is sticking with the program and saving money every year. However, as long as you can stick to the program and the average return is close to the stated expected return you will be able to see first hand what it is going to take to have enough money to enter the college of your choice.