Guides

Money guides, drafted clearly.

Plain-language explanations of the ideas behind our calculators: retirement withdrawals, compounding and fees, net worth, and the real risks of borrowing against your investments.

Each guide explains one topic with worked examples, cites its sources, and links to the calculator that goes with it. None of it is personalized advice. It's meant to help you ask better questions and understand your own numbers.

Retirement

How Much Do I Need to Retire? The 4% Rule, Explained Honestly

Where the 4% rule comes from, what current research says about safe withdrawal rates, and a step-by-step way to estimate your own retirement number.

Sequence-of-Returns Risk: Why the Order of Returns Matters in Retirement

How the same average return can leave one retiree with millions and another nearly broke, and practical ways to protect a retirement plan from a bad early market.

Inflation and Retirement: How to Plan in Today's Dollars

How inflation erodes purchasing power, nominal vs. real returns, and a simple way to adjust your retirement and savings calculations for inflation.

Buy, Borrow, Die

Buy, Borrow, Die

Buy, Borrow, Die Explained: How the Strategy Works and Where It Breaks

A plain-English explanation of the Buy, Borrow, Die strategy: step-up in basis, borrowing against assets, a worked example, and the risks most articles skip.

Buy, Borrow, Die

Securities-Backed Lines of Credit: How They Work and the Risks to Know

How SBLOCs work, typical borrowing limits and rates, what a maintenance call is, and the questions to ask before borrowing against your portfolio.

Taxes

Step-Up in Basis Explained: What Heirs Inherit and Why It Matters

How the step-up in basis works for inherited stocks and real estate, a worked tax example, community property rules, and common misconceptions.

Investing basics

Investing basics

How Investment Fees Compound Against You (With the Math)

Why a 1% fee can cost over $300,000 across a career, how to find what you're paying, and how starting early beats almost everything else.

Net worth

What Counts in Net Worth? A Practical Guide to Calculating Yours

Which assets and debts to include in your net worth, how to value a home, car and retirement accounts, how often to track it, and how you compare by age.

Inflation

What Inflation Really Means for Your Everyday Costs

A plain-English guide to inflation: what the CPI measures, the latest price changes for groceries, gas, rent and more, and why prices don't go back down when inflation cools.

Is Your Raise Beating Inflation? How to Calculate Your Real Pay

How to tell whether your raise actually increased your buying power, the simple real-wage formula, worked examples, and how to use inflation data when asking for a raise.

Inflation's Winners and Losers: Cash, Savings, Debt and Investments

How inflation affects cash, savings accounts, fixed and variable-rate debt, I bonds, TIPS and stocks, and practical ways to protect your money's buying power.

Why Your Personal Inflation Rate Is Different From the CPI

How the Consumer Price Index is weighted, why a commuter, renter, homeowner and retiree each feel inflation differently, and how to calculate your own rate.