1k per month = 12k per year. 12k x 5 years = 60k.
You don't even have to put your money into stocks. Maybe you are over-analyzing this.
If you have Excel, here is a variation on a spreadsheet I use to plan out savings. (I tried to asci-art it but the spacing was all whack)
savings.xls
EPM = Expected Principle end of Month
.008 or .8% earned interest per month = about 10% for the year. You can raise or lower this depending on how optimistic your are.
Basically the first row is the month. The second row is your expected principle at the end of that month (due to earnings on your investment). The third row is the amount of money you are investing.
I usualy set the spreadsheet up for yearly views. So row 1 is a year, row 2 is x*1.1 or so, and row 3 is amount invested per year. If you do this for 12k per year and 10% interest, you would have 61k after 4 years. If you do 16k the first year and 12k for 3 years, you will have 67k.
You could also just do the interest calculation or lookup a good savings/interest calculator online... But I like seeing everything out in a table.
Hope this helps.
[rant] I hate posting in the Stock Market forum cause I'm always scared someone is going to call me out on how wrong my analysis/advice is. At least in the probability forum no one expects you to know advanced math. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] The people are actually pretty nice here though. [/rant]
- Jason