About CAGR, Inflation & Emergency Fund Calculator
Three short calculations that come up constantly and are easy to get wrong by hand: what return an investment actually delivered, what today's money will be worth later, and how large an emergency fund should be.
How to use it
- Pick the calculation you need from the three tabs.
- For CAGR, enter the starting value, the final value and how long you held it. For inflation, enter an amount and a horizon. For an emergency fund, enter your monthly expenses and what you have already set aside.
Frequently asked questions
- What is CAGR and why not just use total return?
- CAGR is the steady annual rate that would have produced the same result. It matters because total return says nothing about time — 50% over two years and 50% over ten are completely different investments, and CAGR makes them comparable.
- How big should an emergency fund be?
- Three to six months of expenses if you have a stable salary; nine to twelve if your income is variable, you are self-employed, or you are the only earner. Keep it somewhere you can reach instantly — a sweep-in FD or liquid fund, not equity. Its purpose is availability, not growth.
- Why does inflation matter so much over long periods?
- Because it compounds like returns do, in the opposite direction. At 6% a year, money loses roughly half its purchasing power in 12 years. Any plan running longer than a decade is misleading unless it is stated in inflation-adjusted terms.