Save 500 a month — what is it in twenty years?
A fixed amount, invested regularly — see what it grows into under different return assumptions. Put in your own numbers. New to DCA? Read the 3-minute explainer →
Licensed Chartered Financial Planner (BNM-LCFP) · Free educational tool · No product pitches
How to verify? ▾
This tool is free; my income comes from client-paid planning services — I don't sell products or take commissions.
Two kids? Screenshot or copy the link before changing the years.
Not sure? The default is fine — the table below lists every rung anyway. Only trust FDs? Tap Custom and put in your own FD rate for comparison.
Excludes fees and taxes. Reference: over 20 years of monthly DCA, a 1%/yr fee cuts the final value by about 11% (lump sums suffer more).
What's it worth then? ≈ RM 140,985 in today's money ▾
Formula: final value ÷ (1+inflation)^years. The default sits near Malaysia's long-run inflation and is conservative for Singapore readers — a rough sense only.
| 0% · principal only (no interest) | RM 120,000 |
| 2% | RM 147,398 |
| 4% | RM 183,387 |
| 6% | RM 231,020 |
| 8% | RM 294,510 |
| 10% | RM 379,684 |
The table above illustrates how sensitive the outcome is to assumptions — it is not a suggestion to chase any particular return. To set an assumption that fits your risk tolerance, talk to JMarc.
Higher assumed returns ride bigger swings — on the 8% and 10% paths, losing years are entirely possible; if that's when you need the money, the loss is real. Every rung is a smoothed assumption; real markets vary year to year.
Rungs are assumptions, tied to no product · Reference (Malaysia) ▾
EPF conventional dividends over the last decade ≈ 5.0%–6.9% (declared yearly, not fixed or guaranteed; verify against KWSP before launch); ASB recent distributions ≈ 4.25%–5.75% (verify against ASNB before launch); local 12-month FDs ≈ 2.5%–3.5% (as of mid-2026). Rungs compound at annual÷12 monthly — the 6% rung is ≈6.17% effective; EPF/ASB payouts are annual effective rates, so comparisons are rough.
A different angle — one stretch of real history (SGD)
What follows is real history: Jan 2010 to 2026-06, a monthly DCA into the S&P 500 versus a rolling Singapore 12-month fixed deposit.
Shown in SGD because this dataset comes from my in-depth article and is most complete there.
Results for an RM-based investor would differ noticeably because of exchange rates.
The amount doesn't change which line wins — watch the shape and the gap.
Why compare against a Singapore FD? ▾
Singapore FD rates have long been lower than Malaysia's, so this comparison is strict on the FD. Put differently: the same comparison with a Malaysian FD would lift the deposit line and visibly narrow the gap — don't map this chart's gap directly onto Malaysia.
S&P 500 = an index bundling America's 500 largest companies (Apple, Microsoft included), often read as the US market's report card. It is not a directly purchasable product.
The annualised figure below is computed on your monthly, staggered contributions — it is not the same number as the index's own annualised return.
Definitions ▾
Index geometric annualised (CAGR) ≈ 14.0%; the DCA cashflow's money-weighted annualised (XIRR) ≈ 14.5% — they differ because contributions arrive in stages and the order of returns matters. Note: feeding this rate into the calculator above will NOT give identical figures — the calculator compounds at annual÷12, a different annualisation basis than XIRR. This is a favourable stretch of US market history — other windows (the 2000–2009 "lost decade") could have lost money on the same DCA. Past performance does not indicate future performance.
I use a monthly SGD-converted, dividend-inclusive series; complete data before 2010 isn't available. Yes, this start sits after the 2008 crash — which is exactly why the loss scenario of eras like 2000–2009 is called out above.
Best: starting 2021 (5.5 yrs, 16.0% XIRR, 1.5×); worst: starting 2014 (12.5 yrs, 14.5% XIRR, 2.6×). Only starts with ≥5 years invested are compared.
These start years all sit in a broadly favourable US stretch — even the worst start was positive, which won't hold for every era; a 2000–2009 start could have lost money.
This is the real month-by-month path — it will differ from the smoothed projection above; the difference comes from the order in which returns arrived.
Note the orange line dropping roughly 16% around March 2020 — that really happened (monthly closing prices are already gentler than that month's intraday low, and converting to SGD cushions it further via FX). What came after is all on the chart. To be clear though: in other stretches of history (2000–2009, say), a DCA could stay underwater for years.
S&P 500 in SGD terms with dividends; the SG FD line is a rolling 12-month ladder — from 2021-07 spliced from OCBC/DBS board rates (MAS's official series was discontinued), not a market average; data as of 2026-06.
Want the full analysis? → the article "SGD500 a Month Since 2010: S&P 500 DCA vs a Singapore Fixed Deposit"One email only — you won't be added to any list.
This tool is for education only — not personalised investment advice; no specific product, fund or platform is recommended. Investments can lose money and returns can be negative; every rung is a hypothetical scenario, not a promise. The S&P 500 is an index and cannot be bought directly; all figures exclude transaction costs, fund fees and taxes. In the projection section, RM/SGD is a label switch only — no currency conversion is performed; the history section's SGD series already embeds historical USD/SGD movements; neither section accounts for converting money back to ringgit in future. This tool does not constitute any currency-exchange or forex advice. Calculation basis: month-end contributions, monthly compounding, monthly rate = annual ÷ 12 — identical to Excel's FV(annual/12, months, -monthly, -initial), with the initial lump sum compounding from month 0. The fee-drag reference uses net return = assumed return − fee with the same formula. Inflation adjustment assumes 2.5%/yr (adjustable 2–3%), close to Malaysia's long-run level and conservative for Singapore readers — a rough sense only.