Ipahco | Ipahco

How long would it take?

Put in a sum each month and this says how long it takes to reach your number — at every rate on the comparison, measured and dated, and then again in today's money. That second answer is the one that is always missing.

Every month I can save

I already have

I want to reach

KES 2,000 a month to KES 1,000,000

Each rate here is net of withholding tax and was measured in the last 14 days. Rates that have gone stale are left out: compounded over a decade, an old reading gives a confident answer about a world that has moved on.

Where the money sits	After tax	Time to get there	What it buys by then	In today's money
364-day Treasury bill Central Bank of Kenya	7.68%	18 years 10 months	KES 293,298	35 years 8 months
182-day Treasury bill Central Bank of Kenya	7.67%	18 years 10 months	KES 293,075	35 years 9 months
91-day Treasury bill Central Bank of Kenya	7.65%	18 years 10 months	KES 292,690	35 years 10 months

What it buys by then is your target carried back to today at 6.76% inflation: the same shillings, priced in what they will actually get you. In today's money is how long it takes to reach a target of that real size instead — assuming you raise the monthly amount with prices, because holding it fixed for twenty years is itself a cut.

No money market fund is listed yet, so the most common home for a monthly saving habit is missing from this table. The horizons above are government paper and sacco averages.

What if I buy shares instead?

Nobody can tell you what shares will return, including us — so there is no row for them above. Put in the return you are assuming and the same arithmetic runs on it. It is your forecast, and the number it produces is only ever as good as the guess you put in.

A return I am assuming, per year