Inflation Calculator
What today money is worth in the future, what prices will be, and how long it takes for cash to lose half its value.
Inflation is the slowest and least noticeable way to lose money. Nothing appears to happen to a balance sitting in an account, and by the time the price of a weekly shop has changed, several years of purchasing power are already gone.
Enter an amount, a rate and a number of years, and this calculator shows what that amount will buy, what the same basket of goods will cost, and how much of the value disappears in between.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Amount today, Inflation rate, Number of years
- What you get
- The same basket costs, What your money will buy, Purchasing power lost, Cumulative inflation, Years for cash to lose half its value
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Inflation Calculator
- 1 Enter Amount today
- 2 Enter Inflation rate (percent a year) - Many central banks aim for about 2 percent.
- 3 Enter Number of years (years)
- 4 Press Calculate. You get The same basket costs, What your money will buy, Purchasing power lost, Cumulative inflation, Years for cash to lose half its value, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 5 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
A thousand left alone for ten years
The usual case: a small amount, a moderate rate, a decade.
You enter
- Amount today
- $1,000.00
- Inflation rate
- 3%
- Number of years
- 10 years
You get
- The same basket costs
- $1,343.92
- What your money will buy
- $744.09
- Purchasing power lost
- $255.91
- Cumulative inflation
- 34.4%
- Years for cash to lose half its value
- 23.45 years
Prices rise 34.4 percent over the decade, so the same basket costs 1,343.92. The 1,000 buys 744.09 of what it buys today, a loss of 255.91 of purchasing power, or about 25.59 a year. At this rate cash loses half its value in 23.45 years.
A high inflation decade
A 7 percent rate over twenty years, which is the shape of a currency crisis rather than a normal decade.
You enter
- Amount today
- $50,000.00
- Inflation rate
- 7%
- Number of years
- 20 years
You get
- The same basket costs
- $193,484.22
- What your money will buy
- $12,920.95
- Purchasing power lost
- $37,079.05
- Cumulative inflation
- 287.0%
- Years for cash to lose half its value
- 10.24 years
Cumulative inflation reaches 287.0 percent, so what costs 50,000 today costs 193,484.22 in twenty years. The 50,000 would buy only 12,920.95 of it, a loss of 37,079.05. The value of cash halves every 10.24 years at this rate, which is under half the time it takes at 3 percent.
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Frequently asked questions
Is this the same as a cost of living increase?
No, and the difference matters. Inflation is measured on a basket of goods and services averaged across all households, while a cost of living increase is what it would take for one household to keep the same standard of living. A household that spends a third of its income on housing and another third on food is far more exposed to those two prices than the index suggests.
Use the general rate to understand the direction and the size of the effect, then replace it with the rate for the categories that dominate your own budget if the answer is going to change a decision.
What does the rule of 72 have to do with it?
Dividing 72 by the rate gives the approximate number of years for prices to double or for money to lose half its value. At 3 percent that is 24 years, and the exact figure is 23.4. The rule is useful in conversation because it can be done in your head.
The calculator shows the exact result, which is the logarithm of two divided by the logarithm of one plus the rate. At low rates the two agree closely, and the gap widens as the rate rises.
Can the rate be negative?
Yes, and the field accepts it. Deflation, where prices fall, has happened over long periods in several countries and it raises the purchasing power of money held in cash.
It is not simply the good news it looks like: falling prices are usually accompanied by falling wages and by debts that become heavier in real terms, because the amount owed does not shrink with prices.
What should I do with the answer?
Two things. The first is to check that any long term savings target written in today money has been raised, because a goal of 50,000 in ten years is a smaller goal than 50,000 today. The second is to compare the rate with what the money is actually earning, since cash that earns less than inflation is losing value even when the balance grows.
For a horizon under about five years the calculation matters less, because there is not enough time for compounding to do much damage.