Why did my figures change when I changed nothing?

Your plan is worked out afresh each time you open a page, from your entries plus a few things that change on their own. Nothing you typed is changed for you, and your six economic assumptions stay as you set them. The usual reasons a figure moves:

1. Exchange rates

Any row in another currency is converted into your plan’s currency at the day’s rate before anything is computed. Rates are refreshed daily and checked before they are used: pegged currencies must sit close to their peg, rates are cross-checked against the European Central Bank, and a move of more than 10% is held until the next day repeats it. A line on the Overview, below the Retirement Tracker strip, says which currencies were converted and at which day’s rates, and names any rate more than two weeks old.

2. Market prices

Listed holdings are valued at units times the latest closing price, refreshed after each trading day. A price move changes what you hold and so the projection — but it never marks your plan out of date.

3. Time passing

• Every age in your plan was true on the day it was entered, and moves on from there: a year later you are a year older, the projection starts a year later, and you have a year less to save.
• Loans run down by the instalments due since you entered them.
• The balances you typed are not grown for you — that would be an invented figure. After a year, the Investments section says when they were last updated and asks you to check them.

4. Stored readings

The financial freedom index, its levers and the Freedom Ladder are stored readings rather than worked out on every visit. As well as being refreshed when you save, they are refreshed daily when the public reference data behind them changes. The one-line movement on the Overview compares with an earlier month, so it changes as months pass.

5. Somebody else

If you plan with a partner who can edit, their changes are part of the same plan. Rows in another of Nivritee’s eleven markets also follow that market’s current default rates; see How are costs in another country projected?