How to Grow Money with Changing Rates Using FVSCHEDULE in Excel

Track a CD that renews at a different rate every year and find the single rate that would have matched it.

You will learn to

• Compound money through a list of changing rates
• Value the money part-way through
• Find the equivalent constant annual rate

How it works

FVSCHEDULE(principal, schedule) grows an amount through a series of rates, one per period: principal × (1+r1) × (1+r2) × … Use it when rates change every year, such as CD renewals or variable savings accounts: =FVSCHEDULE(10000,B2:B6).

To summarise uneven rates as one number, compound $1 through the schedule and take the nth root: =FVSCHEDULE(1,B2:B6)^(1/5)-1. That equivalent rate is the geometric average — the fair way to average growth rates.

=FVSCHEDULE(E2,B2:B6)