Short posts, one number each. Every figure comes out of the same engine as the app, with its default settings, so you can rebuild any of them in a few seconds. Share the ones that surprise you.
Two people put away $500 a month at 7% until they turn 65. One starts at 25, the other at 35. At 65 they hold $1,235,771 and $584,726. The difference isn't the $60,000 that never got invested; it's the thirty years of growth that money never had.
See year 30 against year 40
Deposit $1,000 a month at 7% and every year you add $12,000. In year 11 the interest alone comes to $12,354, more than you put in. From then on the gap only widens: by year 20 the portfolio earns $32,774 a year on its own.
See year 11 in the details
It comes down to one thing: how much you take out. At $1,500 a month it lasts 40 years. At $4,000 it's gone in 12. Both assume 5% a year, 3% inflation, and withdrawals that rise with prices so the money keeps buying what it buys today.
Drawdown is in the app
You need 25 times what you spend in a year. Spend $3,000 a month and your number is $900,000; spend $2,000 and it's $600,000. It's the 4% rule turned around: take 4% of 25 times your spending and you get exactly your spending.
Time to FI is in the app
Put in $10,000 once, add nothing, earn 7% a year. After ten years it's $19,672; after forty, $149,745. Each decade roughly doubles the pile, which is why the last ten years add more than the first thirty together.
See all forty years
Same $1,000 a month, same thirty years. At 7% you end with $1,169,453; at 8%, $1,408,551. A single point of return, or of fees you don't pay, is worth almost a quarter of a million over a working life.
See 8% year by year
Reach $1,000,000 in thirty years and, at 3% inflation, it buys what $411,987 buys today. That's why the app can flip any result between nominal value and today's money, and why a target set today should grow with prices.
The Real | Nominal switch is in the app
Spend $3,000 a month, so your number is $900,000. Start with $100,000, add $2,000 a month at 7%, and you get there in October 2041. From that day the portfolio pays $3,000 a month at a 4% withdrawal rate.
See the year it crosses $900,000