Three tools in one. See what your money is really worth after inflation. Find out what raise you need to keep pace with rising prices. And watch what idle savings lose every year while sitting in a low-rate account.
Connecting Africa to Wall Street · Knowledge is Unction
Select an inflation rate to get started
Purchasing PowerWhat will $X be worth?
Salary DefenderWhat raise do you need?
Savings ErosionHow much does idle cash lose?
Purchasing Power CalculatorResults update as you move the sliders
Dollar amount today$10,000
This could be a savings balance, a salary, an investment, or any other fixed dollar amount
Annual inflation rate3.0%
US long-run average is 3%. The Fed targets 2%. The 2022 peak hit 8%
Years ahead10 years
How far into the future you want to project this amount
Compare: what if you invested instead?
Investment return (to compare)7.0%
S&P 500 inflation-adjusted historical average is about 7%. Use 4 to 5% for a conservative estimate
Your current salary$60,000
Your annual salary in today's dollars
Annual inflation rate3.0%
The rate at which prices in the broader economy are rising
Your annual raise2.0%
The raise percentage you are receiving or expecting. If no raise, set to 0%
Years to project5 years
How many years of raises and inflation you want to model
Savings balance$25,000
The total amount sitting in your savings account right now
Your savings account APY0.5%
Traditional big-bank savings accounts often pay 0.01 to 0.5%. High-yield online accounts offer 3 to 5%
Annual inflation rate3.0%
The rate at which the cost of living is rising around you
Years to hold10 years
How long this balance will sit before you use it
Real Value After Inflation
$0
In today's purchasing power
Nominal Value
$0
Purchasing Power Lost
$0
Real Loss %
0%
Cash vs Invested — same starting amount
Cash / Savings
$0
After inflation
→
If Invested at 7%
$0
After inflation adjustment
Opportunity cost of holding cash instead of investing$0
At this inflation rate, prices double in
Rule of 70: divide 70 by the inflation rate
— years
Nominal value
Real purchasing power
If invested
Year
Nominal Value
Real Value (Today's $)
Purchasing Power Lost
% of Power Remaining
Where Inflation Hits Hardest
The headline CPI number averages out across all spending categories. These are the categories that have consistently outpaced the overall figure, based on BLS data from 2020 through 2025.
Shelter / Housing
+27%
Food at Home
+22%
Motor Vehicles
+24%
Medical Care
+15%
Education
+13%
Headline CPI (all items)
+19%
Electronics / TVs
-25%
How it works
Inflation is not what you see. It is what you stop being able to afford.
At 3% annual inflation, prices do not feel dramatically different from one year to the next. A coffee that cost $4.00 today costs $4.12 next year. Not alarming. But run that math forward 24 years and you need $8.00 for the same coffee. That is the Rule of 70 in action: divide 70 by the inflation rate and you get the approximate number of years it takes for prices to double. At 3% that is 23 years. At 6% it is 12. At 8% it is less than 9.
The same silent math works against any fixed or slowly-rising dollar amount. A salary frozen for five years while inflation runs at 3% has lost about 14% of its purchasing power. A savings account earning 0.5% while inflation runs at 3% is losing 2.5% of real value per year. This calculator makes all three of those patterns visible so you can make decisions with accurate numbers in front of you.
Purchasing Power mode
Shows what a fixed dollar amount is truly worth after inflation. Most useful for evaluating life insurance payouts, pension promises, inheritance amounts, or any sum fixed in today's dollars that you expect to use in the future.
Salary Defender mode
Compares your raise percentage to inflation to show whether your real income is rising or falling. A 2% raise when inflation runs at 4.5% is a pay cut that looks like a pay raise. This mode quantifies exactly how large that gap is.
Savings Erosion mode
Shows how much a savings account balance loses in real terms when the account's interest rate is below the inflation rate. Moving from a 0.5% traditional savings account to a 4.5% high-yield account is one of the highest-return decisions most people can make with zero extra risk.
Historical context
Period
Avg Annual Inflation
Prices after 10 years
$100,000 real value after 10 years
Prices double in
Fed 2% Target
2.0%
+21.9%
$81,940
35 years
2010s Average
1.8%
+19.5%
$83,600
39 years
US Long-Run (1926 to 2025)
3.1%
+35.8%
$73,600
23 years
1970s Stagflation
7.3%
+102%
$49,500
10 years
2022 Peak
8.0%
+116%
$46,300
9 years
Nigeria 2024 Average
~28%
+1,219%
$6,800
2.5 years
The diaspora dimension
Inflation is a double threat for the African diaspora investor
If you earn in US dollars and send money home to Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, or Ghana, you are exposed to two inflation rates at once. Your US salary is eroded by American inflation on the spending side. But the purchasing power of the dollars you send home is also eroded by the far higher inflation rates of your home country, on top of any exchange rate movement between USD and local currencies.
A family in Lagos receiving $500 per month is not receiving a fixed real benefit. At Nigeria's recent average inflation rates, the purchasing power of that $500 in local goods falls by 25 to 30% per year even if the dollar amount never changes. Building investment income in USD, rather than only sending cash transfers, creates a real income stream that compounds in a relatively stable currency and protects against both sides of this problem.
Nigeria 2024 ~28% CPI
Ghana 2024 ~23% CPI
Kenya 2024 ~5.5% CPI
Uganda 2024 ~4% CPI
US 2025 estimate ~3.2% CPI
Common questions
What is inflation and how does it actually affect me?+
Inflation is a general rise in the prices of goods and services over time. In practice it means the same dollar buys less stuff as the years pass. If you earned $60,000 in 2015 and your salary has stayed flat, you can buy noticeably less today than you could then because everything from groceries to rent to healthcare costs more. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the US government's main measure, tracking a basket of about 80,000 goods and services collected from around 23,000 retail locations every month. When the CPI rises 3% year over year, it means on average prices are 3% higher than they were a year ago.
What is the Rule of 70 and why does it matter?+
The Rule of 70 is a quick mental math shortcut: divide 70 by the annual inflation rate to estimate how many years it will take for prices to double. At 3% inflation, prices double in about 23 years. At 7% they double in 10 years. At the 2022 peak of 8%, prices were on track to double in less than 9 years. This matters because any fixed income, whether a pension, a frozen salary, a bank balance earning below-inflation interest, or life insurance proceeds, loses half its real value in that time. Seeing your number through the Rule of 70 lens is one of the most clarifying things you can do in personal financial planning.
My raise was 3% but inflation was 4%. Did I actually get a pay cut?+
Yes. A nominal raise below the inflation rate means your real income fell even though the number on your paycheck went up. If you earned $70,000 and received a 3% raise to $72,100, but inflation ran at 4%, your salary now needs to be $72,800 to maintain the same purchasing power. You are $700 short in real terms. Over five years of similar raises below inflation, the compounding gap becomes substantial. Use the Salary Defender mode above to see exactly how large the shortfall is in your specific situation, which gives you a precise, objective number to bring into your next raise negotiation.
How does keeping money in a low-yield savings account affect its real value?+
If your savings account earns 0.5% APY while inflation runs at 3%, you are losing approximately 2.5% of real purchasing power every year. On a $50,000 balance, that is $1,250 of real value lost per year. Over 10 years the balance nominally grows to about $52,500, but in real purchasing power terms it is worth only about $38,500. Switching to a high-yield savings account earning 4.5% APY would reverse this entirely: you would be earning real returns above inflation rather than losing them. The Savings Erosion mode above shows the exact numbers for your specific balance, rate, and time frame.
What is core inflation vs headline inflation?+
Headline inflation is the full CPI number that includes all spending categories, food and energy included. Core inflation strips out food and energy because their prices are highly volatile, driven by oil markets, weather, and geopolitical events rather than underlying economic conditions. The Federal Reserve watches core inflation closely because it reveals the underlying trend without monthly noise. During the 2022 surge, headline CPI peaked at 9.1% while core was closer to 6.6%, a meaningful difference that influenced how aggressively the Fed raised interest rates. For long-run financial planning, the headline number matters most because you actually buy food and energy.
How does inflation affect my investments?+
Any investment return below the inflation rate is a real loss, regardless of what the nominal return looks like on a statement. A bond earning 2.5% when inflation is 3.5% is losing 1% of real value per year. Equities have historically provided returns well above inflation over long periods, which is why financial advisors consistently recommend maintaining meaningful stock market exposure even close to retirement. The S&P 500's real (inflation-adjusted) historical average return is approximately 6.5 to 7% per year. Comparing any investment's yield or return to the current inflation rate is the first and most important sanity check before committing capital.
Why does my personal inflation rate feel higher than the CPI number?+
Because the CPI is an average across all spending categories, and your spending may be concentrated in the categories that have risen fastest. From 2020 to 2025, shelter costs rose about 27%, food at home about 22%, and new vehicles about 24%, all well above the headline CPI for that period. If you rent in an expensive city, buy a lot of groceries, and recently bought a car, your effective personal inflation rate is meaningfully higher than 3%. The category breakdown chart on this page shows where the sharpest increases have occurred, which helps you understand the gap between the headline number and what you actually feel in your wallet.
Why this matters
Inflation is not a headline number. It is a daily reality.
Every financial decision you make is shaped by inflation whether you account for it or not. Whether you are negotiating a salary, deciding where to park your savings, evaluating a pension offer, or planning how much to invest, the difference between nominal and real matters enormously. The tools above give you the numbers to make those decisions clearly, not based on what sounds good but based on what is actually happening to the purchasing power of your money.
For diaspora investors sending money across borders, the stakes are even higher. Understanding both sides of the inflation picture, US and home country, is not optional. It is the foundation of a real financial strategy.
Beat inflation. Build real wealth.
The only way to consistently outpace inflation over the long term is to invest. Unction Trade shows you how to do that, step by step, from scratch.
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