Site
Editorial policy
Every number on this site is either computed from assumptions stated on the page or attributed to a named source with its edition year. There is no third category.
Where the numbers come from
A figure here is one of two things. Computed: it comes out of the standard model below, and the inputs are on the page so you can reproduce it. Sourced: it carries the name of the publication and the year of the edition it came from — "Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022 edition", not "studies show".
The sources this site leans on are the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances for US household net worth, the IRS for published contribution and tax limits, the UBS Global Wealth Report for global millionaire counts, the S&P Dow Jones Indices SPIVA scorecards for active-versus-index performance, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for income, spending, and inflation. We go to the primary document rather than to an article summarising it, because secondary reporting is where transcription errors and dropped qualifiers get introduced. Where a source's definition matters — whether net worth includes home equity, say — the page says so, as on millionaire statistics.
The math we show
Projections across the site use one model, so figures on different pages agree with each other and with the calculator:
| Assumption | What we use |
|---|---|
| Average annual return | 7%, real (after inflation) |
| Compounding | Monthly |
| Contribution timing | End of each month |
| Taxes and fees | Not modelled, unless a page says otherwise |
The 7% is not optimism. Long-run US equity returns have run roughly 10% nominal and about 7% after inflation, and using the real figure keeps every target in today's purchasing power — a $1,000,000 goal that means what $1,000,000 means now, not a number eroded by three decades of inflation. The mechanics are worked through on compound interest.
Projections are illustrations, not forecasts. Real returns arrive in an ugly, uneven sequence; no decade delivers the average on schedule, and the decade that matters to you may not deliver it at all.
What we don't do
No affiliate links. No sponsored posts, paid placements, or link insertions — including the polite kind that arrives as a broken-link report. No personalised advice, and no product recommendations by brand. The site has no financial relationship with any broker, fund company, or advisor, and nothing that appears alongside an article has any say in what the article says.
The practical consequence is visible in the content. Pages name a category — a low-cost S&P 500 or total-market index fund — where that is genuinely informative, and stop there. When the honest answer is that a popular strategy is bad, or that a goal takes twenty years, the page says so rather than routing you toward something sellable. That is the whole premise described on the about page, and it is why the main plan is unglamorous.
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong, tell us: send the page URL and the source that contradicts it through the contact page. Corrections are prioritised over everything else in the queue. Material errors — a wrong number, a misattributed source, a broken calculation — are fixed promptly and noted on the page itself rather than quietly overwritten, so a reader who saw the old version can tell what changed. Typos and formatting get fixed without a note.
Edition labels and ageing
Two kinds of figures go stale. Statutory numbers — 401(k) and IRA contribution limits, tax brackets — change annually, and survey data arrives on a multi-year cycle. Both carry their edition year in the text for that reason. When a new edition is published, the page is updated and the edition label changes with it; we do not swap a 2022 number for a 2025 one while leaving the old label in place.
So the check is simple: look at the year attached to the figure. If a page cites the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, that is genuinely the survey being quoted, not shorthand for "recent". Where a statutory limit changes yearly, pages describe the mechanism and point you to the current IRS figure rather than freezing a number that will be wrong in January.
Scope, and what this isn't
This site covers one subject for one audience: building a $1,000,000 net worth, under US accounts and US tax rules. Readers elsewhere will find the arithmetic transfers and the account names do not.
It is educational content, not financial, tax, or legal advice, and it cannot account for your income, debts, family, or timeline. Figures are illustrations based on stated assumptions, not guarantees; markets involve risk, including loss of principal. If you have meaningful money at stake, take your specific situation to a qualified professional who can see all of it.