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Inflation Calculator

Your savings account is charging you a fee. It just doesn't put it on the statement.

Enter your savings balance, your bank's interest rate, and how many years you want to look at. We'll show you the fee you've been paying without knowing it.

▪ Enter your details
🔒 Everything you enter stays in your browser. We don't store, collect, or see any of it.
▸ Inflation rate: 3.4% per year (20-year US CPI average)

%
Leave blank to use 3.4%
Your savings balance's real value in 10 years
$7,240
That's $2,760 you quietly lost to inflation.
Your account will show $14,700, but it will only buy what $7,240 buys today.
▪ The 3.4% doesn't tell the whole story
2021 7.0% 40-year high. Highest annual rate since 1981
2022 6.5% full-year rate; hit 9.1% in June before energy prices pulled it back
2023 3.4% cooled, but still above the long-term average
2024 2.9% held above the Fed's 2% target all year
2025 2.7% continued cooling; Oct. data unavailable due to gov't shutdown — est. Dec-to-Dec

3-year average (2021–2023): 5.6%. Nearly double the 3.4% this tool uses as its baseline.
The inflation calculation

We use the standard real return formula: Real Value = Nominal Value × ((1 + interest rate) / (1 + inflation rate))^years. This adjusts your savings account's growth for the erosion caused by rising prices.

Why 3.4%?

3.4% is the approximate average annual CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation rate in the United States over the last 20 years, as measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPI measures the average change in prices paid by consumers for goods and services. We use this as our baseline assumption because it reflects long-term historical reality, though inflation has been higher in recent years (7.0% in 2021, 6.5% in 2022).

The Bitcoin comparison

The Bitcoin comparison uses actual year-end closing prices from 2014 through 2024. We simulate a simple dollar-cost averaging strategy: investing your monthly equivalent amount once per year at that year's closing price. This is a simplified model. real DCA would be monthly. Past performance does not predict future results. Bitcoin is volatile and you could lose money.

Data sources

Inflation data. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov). Bitcoin price data. historical closing prices, CoinGecko.

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