You bought a house for $150,000 in 2000. Today, someone tells you it is worth $350,000. You feel wealthy. But is that really true? Or you earned $30,000 a year in 2000 and $45,000 today. You got a 50% raise! But can you actually buy 50% more stuff with your salary? The answer to both questions is: maybe not. Inflation—the general rise in prices over time—silently erodes the buying power of your money. Without accounting for it, you cannot tell if you are actually wealthier or just living in an economy where everything costs more. You could try to manually track prices of individual items over decades. But prices vary by location, quality changes, and availability. Doing this by hand is impossible. Or you could use an inflation calculator to instantly show that your $150,000 house purchase in 2000 would cost $275,000 to buy today (assuming 2.5% average annual inflation). It reveals whether your house gained real value or just moved with inflation. An inflation calculator adjusts past do...