The Squeeze Test
If you're in the middle, one dollar amount can feel pulled in three directions at once: your kids, your parents, your own future. See what it actually becomes under each.
The Squeeze Test
One amount. Three real, competing claims on it. See what it becomes under each.
A bonus, a raise, or an amount you just freed up. Whatever it is, put it here monthly.
Adjust the assumptions
A typical savings account rate. This money needs to be there when it's needed, not tied up chasing growth.
What this becomes, doing three jobs at once
Tax-advantaged growth, invested for the long run.
Held, not invested, available the moment it's needed.
Long-term growth to your time horizon.
These aren't the same kind of money, so they shouldn't be modeled the same way. An education fund and a retirement account can afford to ride out the market because there's time on their side. A parent's care costs can show up on short notice, so that money needs to be there in full, not hoping the market cooperates first. Same dollar, three honest treatments.
Illustrative estimates only, based on the assumptions above, not guarantees of actual investment or savings performance. Nothing is saved or sent.
What does the Squeeze Test show?
Take one monthly amount, a raise, a bonus, or a payment that just ended, and see what it becomes over your time horizon if it goes toward a child's education, toward your own retirement, or into a buffer for a parent's care. Same dollars, three different futures, side by side.
Why isn't the money split three ways?
Because the point is to see the real cost of each choice. The full amount is modeled three separate times, once under each use, so you are comparing what the whole amount becomes in each direction, not dividing one pool into thirds.
Why do the growth rates differ?
Education and retirement money has years to grow, so both default to 6% a year, the same assumption the site's other calculators use. A parent-care buffer has to be there the day it is needed, so it sits in ordinary savings and defaults to 1%. All three can be changed under "Adjust the assumptions."