Out of curiosity I have used the Government Inflation Calculator
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
to make sense of our last 30 years of retirement, and how we got to today, moneywise, I looked at our finances from back in those days, expenses, savings, house value, investments etc, and entered them into the calculator.
As actual inflation is calculated for the US dollar, the difference between 1988 and 2018 (our current retirement years) ... is 100%.... Thus $1 then, would be $2 today.
As a check using the historical CPI, one can use the calculator to reverse calculate from today, to a period equal to your life expectancy.... Just to see what the equivalent time period produced in the past.
So... for a 40 year retirement.... (age 50 to 90) you'd enter $1,000,000 in 1978 and calculate inflation in 2018 to be $4,000,000.... or age 60 to 90, being $2,000,000.
In our case our dollar assets 30 years ago are exactly what they are today.
I suppose it's just chance, but an interesting check on reality.
Sidenote... it works out to be about 4.6% compounded interest. That's just about what we've been receiving in interest on our small investments.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
to make sense of our last 30 years of retirement, and how we got to today, moneywise, I looked at our finances from back in those days, expenses, savings, house value, investments etc, and entered them into the calculator.
As actual inflation is calculated for the US dollar, the difference between 1988 and 2018 (our current retirement years) ... is 100%.... Thus $1 then, would be $2 today.
As a check using the historical CPI, one can use the calculator to reverse calculate from today, to a period equal to your life expectancy.... Just to see what the equivalent time period produced in the past.
So... for a 40 year retirement.... (age 50 to 90) you'd enter $1,000,000 in 1978 and calculate inflation in 2018 to be $4,000,000.... or age 60 to 90, being $2,000,000.
In our case our dollar assets 30 years ago are exactly what they are today.
I suppose it's just chance, but an interesting check on reality.
Sidenote... it works out to be about 4.6% compounded interest. That's just about what we've been receiving in interest on our small investments.
Last edited:
