Investment Path Your money, in perspective

Worked example

€50,000 held as 0 %-interest cash for 20 years

No return, no contributions, twenty years. The balance below is what the same €50,000 would buy at today's prices once inflation has run its course – the account statement still says €50,000.

The answer

What €50,000 still buys in 20 years

€30,514

Inflation-adjusted, at the 2.5 % yearly inflation assumed across this site.

Account balance after 20 years · unchanged
€50,000
Assumed yearly return
0 %
Assumed inflation
2.5 %

Open this plan and change the assumptions

Opens with these numbers, ready to change. Nothing you enter there is saved.

Nothing goes wrong, and you still lose

There is no crash on this page and no mistake. The balance is the same number in year 20 as on day one. What changed is everything it is measured against: at 2.5 % a year, prices roughly double every twenty-eight years, so money held still loses purchasing power at a steady, invisible rate.

Why 2.5 % and not the rate on the news

It is this site's long-run planning assumption, not the European Central Bank's 2 % target and not a forecast for any particular year. Individual years have been far higher and occasionally negative. The point is not the exact figure: at any positive rate, cash held for decades declines, and the only question is how fast.

What a real account adds

A real savings account may pay interest, and that interest can be taxable after the shared allowance. Compare its net interest with inflation rather than treating this 0 % case as every account. Also keep statutory deposit protection in view: in Germany it is generally €100,000 per customer per bank, subject to the scheme's conditions.

What this page is not

It is an illustration under stated assumptions, not advice and not a forecast. The return is an assumption you can disagree with, the tax is an estimate of one common German case, and no page on this site knows anything about your circumstances. How it works sets out the arithmetic and the full list of what the model leaves out.

How it works

Other questions worked through