Historical savings rate calculator?

diadeb

I am looking for a way of working out what interest would have been accumulated over the last 10 years if money had been invested in an average childs building society savings account.

I often see examples in letters sent to the press but cannot find such a calculator to do my own workings. I invested some money for my children, thinking that with 10+ years, I would easily beat the building society. How wrong I was! I used an IFA who suggested a low risk unit trust - so low risk it never made any money! I then moved it to another fund in 2005, which although it's quite good, has obviously taken a beating in the last few months.

My eldest now could do with the money and so I was thinking of topping it up to what it would have been, so that he won't have lost his money because of my bad decision! Can anyone help?

ray123

An idea might be to take an average rate, perhaps 5%, and work out how much the money would be worth now and then make up the difference.

1000 pounds invested at 5% per annum would be worth 1629.
For 5% compound annual interest , multiply the original lump sum by 1.62889462675.

If you were making additional annual or monthly payments, it becomes more complicated.
If you wish to calculate how much a constant yearly investment of 500 pounds would be worth after 10 years, multiply the annual installment by 12.5777892535.
Eg. 500 invested at the beginning of each year for 10 years, would be worth 6289.