How it works
Using it
- Pick a city. Click it on the map, or type its name in the search box. Zoom with the + − buttons, a pinch, or ctrl + scroll.
- Choose a lifestyle. Lean, Standard or Comfortable. It sets the starting spend for every city at once, and reshades the map.
- Compare, if you want. Press Compare with another city, then click a second one. You get a side-by-side table and a volatility score for each.
- Use your own spending. Change any line under Monthly spend. A changed field turns gold; ↺ or Esc puts it back. Tick Keep my figures to carry them to other cities.
- Set the assumptions. How fast prices rise and how many years ahead. Add savings and income to see how long your money lasts. Arrow keys nudge a value; shift nudges it ten times as far.
- Read the results. The four figures under the map:
- A year there, at today’s prices — your monthly spend × 12.
- Capital needed today — what you’d need in hand now to pay for every year, if your savings earn the return you set.
- Year N, at year N prices — the last year’s cost after inflation.
- All years added up, or with savings and income entered, what’s left at the end — or the year it runs out.
- Look at the 10 Year Trend. Pick up to 8 countries from the list. Hover a name to preview it, switch between log and linear, or read it as a table.
- Share it. The address bar carries your city, comparison, lifestyle, years, savings and income. Copy it.
City prices
Each city has a price index for six categories. 100 is a mid-tier US city (Chicago). London’s housing index is 195: housing there costs about 1.95× the reference.
A city’s starting spend is the lifestyle’s amount at index 100, scaled by the city’s index. For London on Standard:
| Category | At index 100 | × London index | = London |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | $1,500 | 1.95 | $2,925 |
| Food | $500 | 1.05 | $525 |
| Transport | $220 | 1.30 | $286 |
| Utilities | $180 | 1.20 | $216 |
| Health | $250 | 0.20 | $50 |
| Leisure | $330 | 1.30 | $429 |
| Per month | $2,980 | $4,431 |
Indices are curated estimates from public price-level statistics, current as of 2026-09. 410 cities in 178 countries. They are not a rent listing — use your own figures where you have them.
The map’s shading is each country’s average across its cities, on a log scale, so the cheaper half of the world doesn’t all land in one shade.
Lifestyles
What each lifestyle spends per month in a city at index 100:
| Category | Lean | Standard | Comfortable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | $950 | $1,500 | $2,600 |
| Food | $330 | $500 | $850 |
| Transport | $110 | $220 | $450 |
| Utilities | $140 | $180 | $240 |
| Health | $150 | $250 | $400 |
| Leisure | $150 | $330 | $900 |
| Per month | $1,830 | $2,980 | $5,440 |
The projection
Housing rises at its own rate. Everything else rises at the general rate. Housing is usually the biggest line and rarely tracks general inflation; one blended rate understates the long run.
housing in year Y = housing now × (1 + housing inflation)^(Y − 1) everything else = the rest now × (1 + inflation)^(Y − 1) year Y = housing + everything else
London, Standard, with United Kingdom’s defaults: inflation 2.5%, housing 3.4%.
| Year | Housing | Everything else | Total | In today’s money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $35,100 | $18,072 | $53,172 | $53,172 |
| 2 | $36,293 | $18,524 | $54,817 | $53,480 |
| 3 | $37,527 | $18,987 | $56,514 | $53,791 |
| 10 | $47,423 | $22,570 | $69,993 | $56,045 |
Today’s money
A future year’s cost, divided by how much prices will have risen by then: cost in year Y ÷ (1 + inflation)^(Y − 1). It rises in London because housing outpaces everything else.
Capital needed today
Each year’s cost, discounted by what your savings earn, added up: Σ cost in year Y ÷ (1 + return)^(Y − 1). For London over 10 years at 4%: $511,457, against $612,341 paid in total.
Your savings and income
Each year: savings earn their return on the balance they started the year with, then the year’s income comes in and its costs go out. The year the balance first goes below zero is when your money runs out.
Price volatility
A score from 1 (steady) to 10 (volatile). It’s built from numbers, not typed in per city — so it can say exactly what moved it.
score = 0.5 + 2.1 × ln(inflation)
+ 0.25 × (housing inflation − inflation) up to +1.5
+ country factorsInflation counts on a log curve: going from 2% to 6% matters far more than going from 40% to 44%. Scores above 8.5 are compressed, so the worst cases stay in order instead of all reading 10.
| Country factor | Adds |
|---|---|
| A mature, diversified economy | −0.4 |
| A pegged or shared currency | −0.5 |
| Heavy reliance on commodity exports | +0.5 |
| Capital and currency controls | +0.8 |
| Sanctions exposure | +1.0 |
| Conflict or post-conflict disruption | +1.5 |
United Kingdom: 2.42 from 2.5% inflation, +0.22 for housing running ahead of it, −0.4 for a mature, diversified economy = 2.2/10.
It’s an assumption about the future, not a forecast. Nothing about it is certain.
10 Year Trend
Real consumer prices, from the World Bank: Consumer price index (FP.CPI.TOTL), 2014–2024, with 2014 set to 1. A line at ×1.5 in the last year means prices there are half as high again as in 2014.
The world average is the World Bank’s own world inflation rate, compounded onto the same starting point.
171 countries, retrieved 2026-09-20. The World Bank doesn’t publish a series for these, so they’re left out rather than estimated: Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Falkland Islands, Greenland, Myanmar, New Caledonia, North Korea, Northern Cyprus, Puerto Rico, Somalia, Somaliland, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zimbabwe.
What it isn’t
- Not financial advice. It’s arithmetic on figures you can see and change.
- Not a price list. City figures are indices, not quotes for a flat or a shop.
- Not a forecast. Inflation, returns and volatility are assumptions about the future.
- In US dollars, so every city is measured in the same unit.