Put mutual funds, gold, FD, LIC, bonds, and a savings account in one table. Change any rate, pick your investment frequency, and see which one actually grows your money the most.
| Option | Total invested | Expected return % tap to edit | Maturity value | Total returns | Absolute gain |
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Enter how much you invest per period, pick monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly frequency, and set the number of years. The holding period field is optional: it adds years after your last deposit where the corpus keeps compounding with no new money going in. This models situations like investing for 15 years and then leaving the money untouched for another 5 before withdrawing. The calculator updates immediately and ranks all six options by maturity value.
Every return rate in the table is editable. Click any percentage and type in your own assumption. The charts and maturity values update the moment you change a number.
Each option sits at a different point on the risk-return spectrum. Here is where they stand:
When you retire, the income stops but the portfolio does not have to. The holding period field models exactly this: you put money in for 15 or 20 years, then leave the full corpus untouched for another 5 or 10 years while it keeps compounding. The numbers get interesting fast. A Rs.10,000 monthly SIP for 20 years generates a sizable corpus. Hold that corpus for another 5 years at the same return rate and the final number is nearly 50% larger than withdrawing at year 20. The corpus is doing work the active SIP years built the engine for. This is relevant for people who retire at 55 and plan to draw down only from 60, or anyone who receives a lump sum they do not need to touch for several years.
Over the last 10 to 15 years, equity mutual funds through the Nifty 50 have delivered around 12 to 14% CAGR. FDs over the same period have averaged 6 to 7%. The gap might not sound dramatic, but compounding makes it enormous. Rs.10,000 invested monthly for 15 years at 12% grows to roughly Rs.50 lakh. At 7%, the same investment reaches about Rs.31 lakh. That Rs.19 lakh difference is not from investing more money; it is purely from a higher growth rate over time. The honest caveat: FDs guarantee that outcome from day one. Equity mutual funds do not. In any given 3-year window, an equity fund turns negative. Over 15 years, that has never happened for a diversified index fund in India, but the journey includes years that test patience.
Over the last decade, both equity mutual funds and gold have delivered roughly 11 to 12% CAGR in India. The similarity in long-term returns masks starkly different year-to-year behavior. Gold tends to surge during global uncertainty: the 2008 financial crisis, the 2020 pandemic, and periods of dollar weakness all sent gold prices sharply higher. Equity markets recover faster during calmer periods. Neither dominates the other across all market conditions. The argument for holding both is not about choosing the better performer; it is about the two assets moving in different directions during stress events. A portfolio with 80% equity and 10 to 15% gold has historically shown less severe drawdowns than 100% equity, with only a marginal reduction in long-term returns.
Bank FDs up to Rs.5 lakh per depositor per bank are insured by DICGC, which effectively removes default risk from the equation. AAA-rated corporate bonds carry the highest credit rating in the private sector, but they are not government-guaranteed. The practical risk difference between a top-rated corporate bond and a bank FD is small but real: corporate bonds depend on the issuer's continued financial health. Government bonds (G-Secs) carry sovereign backing and are as safe as FDs, often yielding 0.5 to 1% more for longer tenures. On returns: corporate bonds typically offer 0.5 to 1.5% above FD rates for the same tenure. For amounts above Rs.5 lakh where DICGC protection does not apply, AAA bonds or G-Secs present a serious case against keeping everything in FDs.
The XIRR on a standard LIC endowment plan, when calculated properly using actual cash flows, premium payments, and the maturity amount, typically lands between 4.5% and 5.5%. A Rs.10,000 monthly premium into an endowment plan for 20 years produces a maturity amount that an equity SIP of the same Rs.10,000 monthly would have surpassed significantly earlier in the tenure. The LIC plan bundles life cover into the premium, which is why the investment return is lower: part of every premium pays for insurance costs. The cleaner approach is to buy a term insurance plan for Rs.600 to Rs.800 per month and invest the remaining Rs.9,200 in an equity mutual fund. The coverage is higher, the premium is lower, and the investment return is not diluted by insurance costs.
From 2014 to 2024, gold delivered approximately 11% CAGR in rupee terms. FDs over the same period averaged 6.5 to 7%. The gold number looks better, but the comparison is not straightforward. FDs pay interest monthly or quarterly that compounds predictably. Gold generates no income; all returns come from price appreciation, which is lumpy and unpredictable in shorter windows. A 3-year window for gold has produced returns ranging from negative 15% to positive 45% depending on the entry point. Over 10 or more years, those swings average out to the 11% figure. If you need Rs.5 lakh in 18 months for a specific purpose, FD is the obvious choice. If you are building a 10-year retirement corpus and want inflation protection alongside equity, allocating 10 to 15% to gold through Sovereign Gold Bonds, which add 2.5% annual interest on top of price appreciation, is a sensible position.
A moderate risk investor is someone who wants to grow capital meaningfully but cannot absorb the possibility of seeing their portfolio down 30% in a bad year. For that profile, AAA-rated corporate bonds or high-quality debt mutual funds at 7 to 8% returns provide growth above inflation without the equity volatility. The trade-off is foregoing the upside equity produces in good years. A 60/40 allocation between equity mutual funds and bonds or debt funds is the textbook moderate-risk portfolio for goals with a 5 to 10-year horizon. The equity portion builds wealth. The debt portion provides ballast and reduces the severity of drawdowns when markets fall. At the extreme end of a bad equity year, a 60/40 portfolio falls roughly half as much as a 100% equity portfolio.
The comparison here is not close. A AAA-rated corporate bond at 8% versus a LIC endowment plan at 5 to 5.5% XIRR leaves the bond ahead by 2.5 to 3 percentage points annually. On a 20-year horizon, that gap compounded produces a dramatically different maturity value. The LIC endowment's return is lower because part of every premium goes toward life cover, which has a cost. If life cover is the goal, a term insurance plan provides far more coverage per rupee of premium than an endowment plan does. If investment return is the goal, bonds deliver more without the insurance cost embedded in the calculation. The situations where an endowment plan makes sense over a bond are narrow, generally limited to investors who want forced savings with some guaranteed return and no intention of ever evaluating XIRR.
The savings account earns 3 to 4%. A standard FD earns 6.5 to 7.5%. On Rs.2 lakh parked for 12 months, the savings account generates roughly Rs.7,000 in interest. The FD generates Rs.13,000 to Rs.15,000. That Rs.6,000 to Rs.8,000 difference requires essentially no effort beyond a single online transaction. The savings account exists for emergency funds and money you need access to within 48 hours. For anything beyond 3 months that you will not need immediately, FDs or liquid mutual funds are straightforwardly better. Liquid mutual funds have the additional advantage of no exit load after 7 days and no TDS on interest, which makes them worth considering for amounts you might need within 3 to 6 months.
A widely used allocation among Indian investors building a long-term portfolio is 70% equity mutual funds, 20% gold, and 10% FD or bonds. The equity portion drives the long-term return. Gold cushions the portfolio during equity market stress and currency weakness. The FD or bond allocation provides liquidity and stability without the volatility of the other two. Over a 15 to 20 year period, this combination has historically delivered 10 to 12% blended CAGR while producing meaningfully smaller drawdowns than a pure equity portfolio. The specific percentages shift with age: a 30-year-old should carry more equity, a 55-year-old nearing retirement should shift more toward FDs and bonds.
Most people think of investing as the active phase, the years when they put money in regularly. The holding period captures what happens after that. You invest Rs.10,000 monthly for 15 years and then stop. The corpus you have built does not need to be withdrawn immediately. If your timeline allows 5 more years without touching it, the full corpus compounds at the same rate for those 5 years with no new investment required. The mathematics works out to a final value considerably larger than withdrawing at year 15. This scenario applies to anyone who retires from active earning but does not need to draw down immediately: someone who retires at 55 with a pension or part-time income covering expenses, planning to start withdrawing the investment corpus at 60. Those 5 years of uninterrupted compounding on a large base add more than many active investing years did earlier in the accumulation phase.
Conservative investors are not served equally well by these three options. AAA-rated bonds at 8% lead on returns. Bank FDs at 6.5 to 7% are slightly lower but carry DICGC insurance up to Rs.5 lakh, removing credit risk entirely. LIC endowment plans at 5 to 5.5% XIRR trail both. On liquidity: FDs allow premature withdrawal with a small penalty, typically 0.5 to 1% below the contracted rate. Bonds trade on exchanges, they trade before maturity on exchanges, though the price depends on current interest rates. LIC policies lock your money in for at least 3 years before any surrender value is available. For a conservative investor who wants to protect capital and earn a reasonable return, FD for amounts within the insurance limit and AAA bonds for amounts above it is a more rational allocation than LIC endowment plans.
The savings account at 3.5% consistently loses to 6% inflation in real terms. Parking money beyond an emergency fund in a savings account is not conservative; it is guaranteed loss of purchasing power. LIC endowment plans at 5 to 5.5% XIRR are rarely the right choice for pure investment purposes. The insurance element is replicable at a fraction of the cost through a term plan, freeing up capital to invest in something that delivers higher returns. Gold at 11% CAGR over a decade and bonds at 8% both have defensible roles in a portfolio. Neither should be entirely avoided. The two things that genuinely belong on the avoidance list for anyone with a 5-year or longer investment horizon are savings accounts for parking savings and LIC endowment plans for building wealth.
