Today’s money and future money

A pound decades from now buys less than a pound today. Landfall does its arithmetic in the money of each future year, then converts the answer back so you can read it in prices you recognise.

Future money is what a statement would say in that year. Today’s money is what it would buy at today’s prices. Headline figures show both, and the charts and tables carry a toggle that switches the whole view.

Example

Say a plan shows a year’s spending as £46,000, with £30,000 beside it in today’s money. Both describe the same year — the first is what a statement would say, the second is what it would buy at today’s prices.

Comparing one year with another is a job for today’s money, because it holds prices still. Checking a figure against a provider’s forecast is a job for future money, because that is the money the forecast is in.

Once you have logged a year, today’s money moves on to the year after it, through the inflation you logged. The amounts you type stay in the money of the plan’s first year, and Edit plan names that year once it has passed.