Witan Way

Inflation Reality

What will today's money be worth tomorrow?

A small annual number, compounded over a working life, is rarely small. Pick a horizon and an assumption, and read the same fact from either direction.

Your assumption

What to work out

Your assumption. Nothing here is a historical average or a forecast.

What it would still buy

€552,071

€1,000,000 in 30 years, in today's purchasing power.

Purchasing power lost

44.8%

Prices multiplied by

1.81

Amount today

€1,000,000

The erosion, year by year

One line, read from either end: the same compounding produces both answers.

Show these figures as a table
YearValue
0€1,000,000
1€980,392
2€961,169
3€942,322
4€923,845
5€905,731
6€887,971
7€870,560
8€853,490
9€836,755
10€820,348
11€804,263
12€788,493
13€773,033
14€757,875
15€743,015
16€728,446
17€714,163
18€700,159
19€686,431
20€672,971
21€659,776
22€646,839
23€634,156
24€621,721
25€609,531
26€597,579
27€585,862
28€574,375
29€563,112
30€552,071

The same horizon, three assumptions

1.0%

€741,923

2.0%

€552,071

5.0%

€231,377

A single point of inflation changes the answer far more than most people expect over a long horizon.

Method, sources and limits
Method version
1.0.0
  • Purchasing power is amount ÷ (1+i)^n; the amount required is amount × (1+i)^n. The two modes are exact inverses. The inflation rate is your assumption: no consumer-price series is used and no preset is a forecast.

Past performance is not a guide to future returns. These figures describe what happened over the period shown and nothing else.

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Questions about this tool

Which inflation rate should I use?
The tool will not choose. Run it at two rates a point apart and see how far the answer moves — that spread is the honest content of the exercise.
Why is there no historical inflation data?
Because a clean, maintained consumer-price series is not part of this dataset, and an approximation would change every number on the page while looking authoritative.
Are the two modes the same calculation?
Yes, read from opposite ends. Feeding the output of one into the other returns your original input, and a test pins that.

Witan Way is an independent, rules-based investing education platform. Nothing published constitutes personalised investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell. Capital is at risk. © Witan Way.