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Freedom Ladder and Investment Performance

Where your money should sit, rung by rung, and how what you hold is doing against the return your own plan assumes.

22 questions

  1. What is the Freedom Ladder?The Freedom Ladder shows where your money should sit: four rungs, from a shock fund to what lies beyond independence, each with its own target and its own job.
  2. Why are the rungs cumulative?The rungs are three thresholds on one amount — what you can draw on — so every rupee counts toward the rung it reaches and every rung above it. The top is your FI number.
  3. What is the Survival rung?Survival is the first rung: cash you can reach the same day, sized as months of essential spending. It starts at three months and you can set anything from one to twelve.
  4. What is the Sustenance rung?Sustenance is your runway if income stops: years of full household spending, held in cash, deposits, bonds or gold so a bad year never forces you to sell growth investments.
  5. What is the Sufficiency rung?Sufficiency is the corpus itself: everything from the top of your runway up to your FI number. It is the one rung that has to reach 100%, and its status says whether you are on pace.
  6. What is the Surplus rung?Surplus is whatever sits above the ladder once the three rungs below are covered. It has no target and no colour, and what it is for is your decision rather than arithmetic.
  7. What do Funded, Building and Thin mean on a rung?They say how full a rung is: Funded is full, Building is at least 60%, Thin is something but under 60%, and Nothing here yet means nothing at all is there.
  8. What do On track, Slightly behind, At risk and Red flag mean?They are Sufficiency’s status: whether what the rung holds today is on pace to reach the top of the ladder by the age you set, given what you keep adding.
  9. Why does a rung say my money is in the wrong place?Each rung only counts money that can do its job. When your total covers a rung but too little of it suits that rung, the card says the money is there and names how much is usable.
  10. How do the ladder sliders work?Three sliders set months of essential spending, years of runway and how much is held in growth assets. Figures update as you move them, and the position saves once you stop.
  11. What does "What would close the gap" show?Priced alternatives for reaching the top of your ladder — save more, take longer, change the mix, or clear expensive debt first — each with what it costs you and its working.
  12. What is the income stability index?A reading of how steady your income is, from 0 to 100. It suggests your runway — between 1.5 and 3 years — until you set the Years of runway slider yourself.
  13. What does Investment Performance show?How the money you already hold is doing — measured against the return your own plan assumes, not an index — plus six readings of how it is arranged and your plan at that return.
  14. What is XIRR, and why is it compared with my plan?XIRR is the one annual rate that turns each amount you put in, on the date you put it in, into what your holdings are worth today. Your plan assumes a return, so this checks it.
  15. Why is my return shown without a colour?Under a year of holding, an annualised return can swing wildly, so Nivritee shows the figure but withholds the green, amber or red until a full year is behind it.
  16. What is the difference between priced and value-only money?Priced money is a listed holding with a ledger and a daily close, so it has a return. Value-only money — deposits and typed figures — has a value and no return.
  17. What are the six investment readings?Six questions about how your money is arranged — return against your plan, concentration, how much is priced, spread, markets and contributions — under one score out of 100.
  18. What is "Your plan at your actual return"?Your whole plan re-run with its assumed return replaced by the return your priced holdings have actually earned, showing the corpus and independence age that would follow.
  19. Which markets and funds does Nivritee price?Eight venues are priced every weekday: NSE, BSE and Indian mutual funds, NASDAQ, NYSE, the London Stock Exchange, US mutual funds, and UK and European funds.
  20. Why does a holding say it is valued at what I paid?When Nivritee has no market price for a holding, it counts it at what you paid rather than dropping it or guessing — and says so on the row. It shows no gain and no return.
  21. How often are prices and exchange rates updated?Prices are fetched every weekday after each market closes, holdings are revalued nightly, and exchange rates refresh daily after checks. None of this makes your plan out of date.
  22. What do the marks on the performance chart mean?They name four days on your own line: your first purchase, when it first passed what you had put in, its highest point, and when it was furthest below what you had put in.