Portfolio value over time
Milestones
Year-by-year ledger
Time machine — what would it be worth today?
Lump sum vs. easing in — what does history say?
Historical averages by decade (annualized, approximate)
Approximate nominal annualized returns from public long-run datasets, for illustration — not a data feed. "Real" outcomes subtract the inflation column.
About The Outcome Ledger
The Outcome Ledger is a free calculator for working out what money turns into over time. There is no account to make and no email to hand over. Nothing you type is sent anywhere — every figure stays in your own browser, which is also why your settings are still here when you come back and why nobody else can see them.
All eight tabs answer one question in different forms: what does this money actually become, once the things that quietly eat it have been counted? That means inflation, tax, fees, maintenance, depreciation and the years where the number goes down. A projection that leaves those out is not optimistic, it is just wrong, and it is wrong in the direction that costs you money.
The numbers each tab opens with are not picked at random and they are not predictions. They are long-run averages and current rates. The S&P 500 has returned about 10% a year since 1928 with dividends reinvested, which is nearer 7% once inflation is taken off. The Stocks tab opens at that historical rate: 8% price growth with a 2% dividend on top. These are nominal figures, so if you want the real one, tick “Show in today’s dollars” rather than lowering the growth rate — doing both takes inflation off twice. Inflation starts at 2.5%, roughly what central banks aim at, and the house price, mortgage rate and rent are close to the US medians for 2026. Every field’s i button says where its starting number came from, and every one of them is meant to be replaced with yours.
Where something is deliberately left out of the maths, the tab’s own explainer says so and says why. None of this is financial advice, and none of it knows anything about your situation.
Sources, assumptions & known gaps
Every rate this calculator opens with is listed below, with what it is based on. This is a calculator, not financial advice: it produces estimates for thinking with, it knows nothing about your situation, and it is not a substitute for an accountant or a licensed advisor.
The starting numbers are long-run averages and current rates, not predictions, and every one of them is meant to be replaced with yours. Listed here are the rates that actually drive the results. The remaining figures — repair costs, replacement cycles, closing and selling costs, lease residuals — each carry their source in the field’s own i button.
| Assumption | Starts at | Based on |
|---|---|---|
| Stock price growth | 8% | With the 2% dividend added and the 0.2% fee taken off, this comes to 9.8% a year. The S&P 500 series built into this page, running 1928 to 2024 with dividends reinvested, works out at 9.94% a year. |
| Dividend yield | 2% | Added to price growth rather than folded into it, so the two can be changed separately. |
| Fund fees (MER) | 0.2% | Roughly what a broad low-cost index fund charges. Subtracted from growth. |
| Volatility | 19% | How far returns swing from year to year, and the only thing setting the width of the Monte Carlo fan. This is the standard deviation of the S&P 500 series built into this page — 19.4% across 1928 to 2024 — rounded to the nearest step on the slider. |
| Portfolio stock return | 10% | The same total-return basis as the Stocks tab, entered as a single number because the Portfolio tab does not split growth from dividends. |
| Gold price growth | 5.5% | Measured from the gold series built into this page. Starting from 1975, 1985 or 1990 all give 5.4–5.5%. The full-period figure of about 5.1% is dragged down by decades when the price was fixed by law rather than set by a market, and the 8.18% figure from 1971 is inflated by a one-off repricing. 5.5% is the defensible forward number. |
| Metals storage & insurance | 0.6% | Physical metal costs money to vault and insure every year, and that drag compounds against you. |
| Portfolio metals return | 4.9% | Gold growth less the storage drag. Lower than the Metals tab on purpose, not by mistake. |
| Home appreciation | 4% | The long-run North American average runs about 4–5% before inflation. Hot decades run higher and flat decades near zero; the decade table on this page shows the spread. |
| Home price | $410,000 | Roughly the US median sale price in 2026. |
| Mortgage rate | 6.5% | Roughly the US national average 30-year fixed rate in 2026. |
| Bond / GIC yield | 4.2% | Close to what a mid-term certificate has recently paid. Nothing about it is locked in for the future. |
| Savings rate | 3.5% | A high-yield savings account. These float with central-bank rates, so today’s 4–5% can be next year’s 1%. |
| Inflation | 2.5% | Roughly what central banks aim at, rather than a measured rate. It applies to projections only. Where this page replays real years — the historical overlays, and the stress-test line from the year withdrawals begin — it uses measured inflation instead, from the row below. |
| Historical inflation | CPI-U, 1927–2024 | US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, December index levels, US city average, all items. Measured December to December so a year of inflation lines up with the same calendar year of stock returns. |
| Paycheque deductions | 2026 | The Canada Revenue Agency’s T4127, Payroll Deductions Formulas: the 122nd edition from 1 January and the 123rd from 1 July, which carries prorated mid-year rates for British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. CPP, CPP2, EI, federal and provincial tax are computed with its Option 1 formulas, the method behind CRA’s own online calculator and tables, and checked against the worked examples in CRA’s T4032 tables for British Columbia and Ontario. The year-end estimate uses the true annual 2026 rates. Quebec: QPP, EI at the Quebec rate, QPIP and federal tax with the 16.5% abatement from the same T4127, checked against the worked examples in CRA’s T4032-QC; Quebec income tax from Revenu Québec’s 2026 rules (brackets, basic personal amount, deduction for workers, the 7% rule for gratuities), checked to the cent against the three worked examples in Revenu Québec’s formula guide (TP-1015.F-V, January 2026) and the table figures on its gratuities and retroactive pay page; QPIP’s self-employed rate as published for 2026. Statutory holiday dates for 2026 come from the provincial and territorial lists compiled by workingdaycalculator.ca, checked against official sources in August 2026; overtime defaults are the provincial employment-standards minimums, which agreements often improve on, so both are editable. |
| Monthly S&P shape | 1928–2024 | When you zoom to 15 years or fewer, the real-history lines on the Stocks tab are drawn month by month. The shape comes from Robert Shiller’s online S&P 500 data (monthly averages of daily closes), extended from July 2023 with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s monthly averages, via the public-domain datasets/s-and-p-500 mirror. It is drawing only: each year-end still lands exactly on the yearly figures above, and no number on the page is computed from it. Monthly averages soften one-day crashes, so 19 October 1987 looks milder than it was. |
| Investment return, Debt tab | 10% | Matched to the Stocks tab so the two do not quietly disagree about what the market does. |
| Debts 4 and above | $3,000 at 19.9% | A placeholder card at a typical card rate, with a $90 minimum — about 3% of the balance, which is the common card formula. Not a researched figure; replace it with yours. |
The growth rates are nominal. That is the one convention worth knowing before reading any result. Every rate above is before inflation, and “Show in today’s dollars” is what converts a result into what it would buy now. Entering a lower rate to allow for inflation and ticking that box takes inflation off twice, which understates every projection on the site.
What is deliberately left out. Each tab’s own explainer names what that tab does not model, and those are the honest parts. The Bonds tab does not show what happens to the price of a bond fund when rates move, because it models holding to maturity, where a rate change does not touch you. The Portfolio tab blends averages, which cannot show that real asset classes fall together in the worst weeks — historical mode is the better test, since it replays years that actually happened. The Debt tab’s invest-instead view compares a guaranteed return against a hoped-for one as though they carried the same certainty; they do not, and that should weigh toward clearing the debt. The Real Estate tab ignores the interest some places require on a held security deposit, which is small next to the compounding the deposit gives up. Real estate is left out of the Portfolio blend entirely, because a mortgage makes it a borrowed position that does not reduce to a percentage.
Worth knowing if you saved a scenario earlier: a changed starting number only reaches new visitors and anyone who uses “Reset this tab”. Your settings are kept in your own browser and are overwritten only where they already hold a value, so an older share link can produce slightly different figures than the same link made today. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. If a figure here is stale or simply wrong, it is worth saying so, so it can be corrected.
How the Stocks tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
How the Vehicles tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
How the Bonds, GICs and CDs tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
How the Precious Metals tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
How the Cash and Savings tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
How the Portfolio tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
How the Debt tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
How the Real Estate tab calculates: the method, the assumptions and what it leaves out →
All the calculators
Each one has its own page, with a full account of what it models and what it deliberately refuses to guess at.
- S&P 500 return calculatorCompound your own growth rate, or replay the real years from 1928 with the crashes in the order they came.
- Rent vs buy calculatorBuying against renting and investing the difference, with repairs, taxes and selling costs counted.
- Lease vs buy a car calculatorDepreciation, interest and out-of-warranty repairs against what a lease costs over the same years.
- GIC and CD calculatorInterest compounded to maturity, and what selling a bond early would cost if rates moved.
- Gold investment calculatorA price assumption less the storage that compounds against you, beside the same money in dividend stocks.
- Savings account calculatorWhat the balance grows to, and what it still buys once inflation has taken its share.
- Portfolio allocation calculatorWhat rebalancing costs, what it buys, and what the mix becomes if you leave it alone.
- Paycheque calculator (Canada)Every deduction on every 2026 cheque, the way payroll works it out, and what tax time will make of it.
- Debt payoff calculatorSnowball against avalanche: which clears sooner, which costs less, and whether investing instead would beat either.