Inflation Calculator
What today's money will be worth later.
What today's money will be worth later.
Compare inflation with investment growth and compound returns.
What today's money will be worth later.
For growth of one principal amount with reinvested returns.
Open calculatorFor a general investment projection with additional contributions.
Open calculatorInflation is the silent tax on cash: prices creep up, so the same money buys less every year. This calculator shows both sides of that erosion — what today's amount will cost in the future, and what today's money will actually be worth in purchasing power.
Enter an amount, the expected annual inflation rate, and the number of years. The calculator compounds prices upward to show the future cost of today's basket, and discounts your money downward to show its future real value.
A is the amount, r the annual inflation rate as a decimal, and t the number of years. The two results are mirror images of the same compounding process.
1,000 at 3% inflation over 10 years: what costs 1,000 today will cost about 1,344, and 1,000 kept as cash will buy only what 744 buys today — a quarter of its purchasing power gone in a decade.
Because it compounds. At just 3%, prices double roughly every 24 years (the Rule of 72). Over a 30-year retirement, that halves the real value of a fixed income twice over.
Approximate it by subtracting inflation from the nominal return: 7% return with 3% inflation is roughly a 4% real return. Precisely: (1.07 ÷ 1.03) − 1 ≈ 3.88%.
Many central banks target around 2%; long-run historical averages in many economies sit between 2% and 4%, with much higher spikes possible. Test a range rather than one number.
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