A quick guide to every tab, input, and metric — so you know exactly what you are looking at.
Projection
Enter a fund's numbers — yield, growth rate, appreciation, share price — and see what happens over 5 to 100 years. Add a lump sum, set a contribution, turn DRIP on or off. The engine runs monthly (360 cycles for 30 years), applying dividend payouts, tax, expense ratio drag, and appreciation in the exact order real markets process them. Switch between Single Holding and Portfolio to model one fund or many.
Live Off Dividends
Same engine as Projection, plus a monthly expenses input and inflation rate. The calculator finds the exact year and month when your dividend income crosses above your inflation-adjusted expenses — your Freedom Date. The crossover chart shows both lines converging. The Status card tells you whether you are free yet at each snapshot year.
Goal Tracker
Set a target amount — $1M, a house price, any number. Add a Target Growth rate if that number increases over time (house prices, inflation-adjusted goals). The calculator shows the gap between your portfolio and the moving target, your progress percentage, and the estimated year you reach it. The target appears as an orange dashed line on the chart.
CAGR Calculator
Four modes: Price Return (start/end price over years), Dividend Growth (start/end dividend), Total Return (including reinvested dividends), and Goal-Based (what growth rate do you need to reach X from Y in Z years). Enter two numbers and a timeframe, get the compound annual growth rate.
Compare
Add unlimited funds or portfolios. They all share the same investment, contribution, and timeframe — the only thing that differs is the fund parameters. Line chart and animated bar chart views show who wins on portfolio value, monthly income, and walk-away value. The head-to-head table crowns a winner per metric.
What Each Input Does
Lump Sum — Starting investment. This buys your initial shares at the share price you set.
Contribution — How much you add periodically. Daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly — the engine converts it to monthly.
Div Yield — Annual dividend as a percentage of share price. A $100 stock paying $3.50/year has a 3.5% yield.
Div Growth — How much the dividend per share increases each year. Applied once per year as a stair-step — the way real funds raise dividends.
Price Appreciation — Annual share price growth rate. 10% means the price compounds by ~0.8% per month.
DRIP — When on, dividends automatically buy more shares (after tax). When off, dividends are cash — they still show as income but do not compound.
Payout Frequency — How often dividends are paid — monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. Affects when DRIP fires and how compounding works between payouts.
Expense Ratio — Annual fund fee, deducted monthly from share price. A 0.03% ratio costs $3/year on $10K. It compounds — over 30 years the difference between 0.03% and 0.75% is tens of thousands.
Div Tax / Cap Gains Tax — Dividend tax is deducted before DRIP. Capital gains tax only reduces the Walk-Away Value — it does not slow your compounding.
What Each Card Means
Portfolio Value — Total value of all shares at the projected price. Includes contributions, DRIP shares, and appreciation.
Walk-Away Value — What you keep after selling everything and paying capital gains tax on the profit. The real number.
Net Dividend Income — Dividend income after tax. Monthly is the primary number. Annual is below it.
Yield on Cost — Your annual dividends divided by what you put in — not the current market yield. Grows as dividend raises compound on your original investment.
Freedom — The year and month your dividend income surpasses your inflation-adjusted expenses. Checked every month.
Need Today — The lump sum you would need right now to cover your expenses from dividends alone, at the current yield after tax.
Total Cost — Lifetime cost of capital gains tax (if you sold), dividend tax, and expense ratio fees combined.
All projections are hypothetical and assume constant rates. Real markets fluctuate. This tool is for education — not financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Dividends can be reduced or eliminated at any time.