You type it
Every number on the page started as a number you entered.
Nothing is scraped from your bank. Nothing is pieced together from a feed of transactions. The balances are the ones you sat down and typed, in the currency you saw them in. That is the only input fjordFIRE accepts.
Everything else on the page is arithmetic on top of those balances. If you want to know where a figure came from, the trail leads back to something you put in yourself.
Native currency
Each account is kept in the currency it actually lives in.
A kroner account stays kroner and a rupee account stays rupees. We convert when we need to show you a single household picture, and we are explicit when we have done so. The underlying account doesn't lose its own currency along the way.
That matters for households whose money lives in more than one place. The numbers on the page should look like your life looks, not like a single home currency has been forced over the top of it.
Your saving vs the currency
What came from your saving, and what came from currency moves, are not the same thing.
A household holding money in several currencies sees its total move around for two very different reasons. One is the saving you actually did. The other is the exchange rate moving on its own. Treating those as the same number flatters you in good months and frightens you in bad ones, and neither feeling is useful.
So we keep them apart. When a figure goes up, we want you to know which part was your work and which part was the currency. When it goes down, the same. The arithmetic keeps that difference visible.
Conservative by default
Where the future is uncertain, we lean pessimistic on purpose.
Any picture of the future is a range. We show the range instead of pretending the optimistic edge of it is the answer. So when fjordFIRE gives you a figure that depends on assumptions, it leans toward the less flattering reading of those assumptions.
The unlucky case stays visible next to the likely one. Not to scare you, but so the plan still holds if the next few years go badly. A plan that only works when things go well isn’t much of a plan.
Numbers you can trace
Nothing on the page is meant to be taken on faith.
If a figure puzzles you, you can follow it back. The balances you entered, the assumptions in play, the moment in time. Nothing is hidden inside a black box. It is arithmetic, and you can see all of it.
The history is kept so that the version of a number you saw last year is still the version you can pull up next year. That continuity is part of what makes the picture trustworthy. If a number looks wrong later, you can check it against what you actually recorded.
What we don't do
fjordFIRE doesn't tell you what to buy.
It tells you what your numbers say, given assumptions you can read and change. It doesn’t push you into a product, recommend a fund, or speak to the specifics of your jurisdiction. Those are conversations for people licensed to have them. Our job is keeping the picture accurate in between.
The same restraint shows up in smaller ways. Here is the shape of it:
- We don't optimise for daily engagement, and we don't gamify your money.
- We don't send streak-loss anxiety.
- We don't compare you to other users, or make you feel behind for what you don't have.
The scope
What we model, what we approximate, and what we leave alone.
Every number on the FIRE and Relocation pages is built from the same rules. Here is where the modelling is solid, where it is a considered approximation, and where we stay out of the way on purpose.
- Your FI date, and the spectrum from Coast to Fat FI.
- A thousand-future projection, with the odds of reaching it.
- Life events and what-ifs, saved as plans you compare.
- Net worth and FX attribution across every currency you hold.
- Runway and an FI date for another country, with Norway's exit tax folded in.
- Cost of living, from country-level indices rather than your exact basket.
- Returns and safe withdrawal, from one global baseline; inflation from where you live.
- Foreign exchange, at daily rates rather than intraday.
- Safe withdrawal, from regional rules of thumb.
- Bank connections. You type your balances; nothing is scraped.
- What to buy. No funds, products, or trades are recommended.
- Tax and legal advice. The exit-tax figure is an estimate, not filing.
- Day-to-day budgeting. This is the FI picture, checked once a month.
Prefer to run a piece of it yourself? The free calculators put the same math in your hands.
A projection is a range of plausible futures, not a prediction. fjordFIRE shows you the shape of your money. It isn't financial, tax, or investment advice.
Want to see this on your own numbers?
fjordFIRE is open to everyone, free. Bring your own numbers.