It’s one of those really interesting questions you sometimes ask yourself when you are looking at your savings: If I left my money in my savings account and didn’t touch it, how long would it be until the amount doubled? Well, assuming that you don’t add any money to the pot and that the interest rate on your savings stays the same, it’s actually a pretty easy question to answer. Naturally, without even looking at any figures, it’s easy to see that the higher the interest rate, the shorter the time needed for your money to double in value.

Here is the table for rate of interest (%) vs how long it will take to double your initial money:

1	68 years 8 months
2	35 years
3	23 years 5 months
4	17 years 8 months
5	14 years 3 months
6	11 years 11 months
7	10 years 3 months
8	9 years
9	8 years
10	7 years 3 months
11	6 years 8 months
12	6 years 1 month
13	5 years 8 months
14	5 years 3 months
15	5 years
16	4 years 8 months
17	4 years 5 months
18	4 years 2 months
19	4 years
20	3 years 10 months

This table shows how significant the interest rate is on your savings, and also why you should start saving as soon as possible. Remember that in the real world, even if you don’t add to the pot, the interest on your savings will usually be added to the pot therefore the interest compunds over time and even if you only earn a tiny amount of interest in the first year, this could add up to significant amounts in later years.

As an example of savings, assume you have £1,000 to put into your savings account. At an interest rate of 1%, in 70 years you will have around £2,000. However if the interest rate is 2%, in just 35 years (i.e. half the amount of time), you will have your £2,000. And this is why it is so important to try and choose the savings account with the highest interest rate that you can find – you might not think that the interest rates between different savings account will make much difference, but this shows that even a 1% difference can make a huge difference to your savings pot!

These figures should also show that regular saving is a really useful habit to get into – all the figures above relate to static savings. If you were putting in small sums each month, the amount you would earn in interest over the same period of time would be much higher.

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