Sixteen tools for tracking where your money is and where it's going.
Personal finance splits into three questions: what am I worth right now, where is my money going each month, and when can I stop working. The tools below map onto those three questions rather than onto financial products, because that's the order most people actually work through them.
If you're starting cold, run the net worth calculator first. Almost every other number here — your savings rate, your FIRE date, how long a career break could last — depends on knowing your current position, and most people are off by more than they expect.
Start here. These establish the baseline numbers the rest of the tools build on.
Four flavours of the same question, differing in how much you want to keep working. Full FIRE means never working again; Coast FIRE means you've saved enough that compounding alone finishes the job; Barista FIRE assumes part-time income covers the gap.
Plan early retirement.
Calculate your freedom number.
How much to invest now, then stop — and let compounding finish the job.
How part-time income shrinks your FIRE number and how many years earlier you can semi-retire.
Use goal-based savings when you have several targets at once with different deadlines. Use the unified savings calculator when you want fine control over compounding frequency and contribution timing.
Recurring costs and one-off purchases both look small in isolation and large over a decade. These put a real number on them.
A salary means different things in different cities, and in different decades. These convert between them.
Short answers to what people ask most before picking a tool.
