Why everything is in today's dollars
Last updated September 19, 2026
Every number MangoDime shows you, and every number you enter, is in today's dollars. The simulation removes inflation from each year's return before it compounds anything, so a result never means less than it looks like.
MangoDime's engine runs entirely in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, not nominal ones. Each simulated year draws a historical stock and bond return, and that year's inflation is stripped out of the blended return before it's applied to your balances: a default assumption of 2.5% a year, which you can change on the Assumptions section.
That's why a $4,100 monthly paycheck means what $4,100 buys right now, not a bigger nominal number decades from now. It's also why Social Security doesn't need a separate cost-of-living adjustment in the model: a benefit that keeps pace with inflation already has a constant real value once everything is expressed in today's dollars. Pensions, by contrast, don't all keep pace automatically, so they have an optional cost-of-living field of their own.
What this doesn't model
- A single flat inflation rate is applied across your whole plan: inflation itself isn't resampled or varied year to year the way market returns are.