Inflation Calculator
Purchasing power moves in both directions. See what today's dollar is worth in the future — and what it was worth in the past.
Nominal amount vs purchasing power
Why this matters
Cash sitting in a checking account at 0% loses purchasing power every year. At 3% annual inflation, $10,000 today will only buy what $5,537 buys today after 20 years. This is why "risk-free" isn't actually free.
Methodology & how to use this
The formulas
Future nominal amount to preserve today's buying power: FV = PV × (1+i)^n. Future purchasing power of today's dollars: PV / (1+i)^n. Past equivalent uses the same formula with negative n.
What inflation rate should I use?
The US long-run CPI average is around 3%. Recent decades have swung from <2% (2010s) to 8%+ (2022). For long-horizon planning, 2.5–3.5% is a reasonable baseline; stress-test with higher numbers.
Keep running the numbers
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