Savings From Quitting A Habit Calculator

Work out savings from quitting a habit instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Savings From Quitting A Habit Calculator

The daily cost is annualised, then treated as a monthly contribution into an ordinary annuity at the given return to show the compounded value. Compounding turns a small daily habit into a meaningful sum: six a day for five years is about eleven thousand invested rather than the ten thousand simply saved.

Formula

Annuity value

future value = monthly amount x ((1 + monthly rate)^months - 1) / monthly rate

Worked example

With the default values below, Savings From Quitting A Habit Calculator returns Value if the money were invested of $12,384.48. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Daily cost of the habitminimum 0.01: 6
Years to projectminimum 0.1: 5
Annual return if investedaccepts 0–30 %: 5 %

Results

Value if the money were invested: $12,384.48
Total simply not spent: $10,957.50
Extra from investment growth: $1,426.98
Monthly amount freed up: $182.63

Step by step

1Values used
2Annuity value
3Value if the money were invested= 12,384.48
4Total simply not spent= 10,957.50
5Extra from investment growth= 1,426.98
6Monthly amount freed up= 182.63

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 3 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation or tax into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is the Savings From Quitting A Habit figure worked out?

future value = monthly amount x ((1 + monthly rate)^months - 1) / monthly rate. The daily cost is annualised, then treated as a monthly contribution into an ordinary annuity at the given return to show the compounded value.

Why does this matter?

Compounding turns a small daily habit into a meaningful sum: six a day for five years is about eleven thousand invested rather than the ten thousand simply saved.

What do I need to enter?

Enter daily cost of the habit, years to project, annual return if invested. The defaults shown are a realistic worked example — swap in your own figures to get a result you can use.