You earn great money, yet somehow you never feel rich. See exactly where each raise actually goes — and what saving it instead would be worth by the end of your career.
Both scenarios start from the same salary and get the exact same raises — the salary line is identical either way. Every year, a baseline share of that year's salary gets saved regardless of the raise, since that's already your habit:
The only thing that differs between the two lines is what happens to this year's raise. The spender line spends 100% of every raise (so their savings stay exactly at the baseline). The saver line banks your chosen percentage of every raise on top of that same baseline:
Both totals are then invested at your chosen return, compounding year over year. The gap you see is the true, isolated effect of what you do with your raises — not a difference in how frugal you are otherwise.
Estimation only, before tax and before any employer-match or windfalls. Not financial advice.
HENRY stands for High Earner, Not Rich Yet — someone with a strong income (often six figures) whose net worth hasn't caught up, usually because lifestyle spending has grown in step with every raise.
There's no single right answer, but a common approach is to save at least half of every raise and let the rest fund lifestyle upgrades — that way your spending still grows, just slower than your income. Use the savings-rate slider above to see what different splits are worth.
As income rises, spending quietly rises to match it — a bigger apartment, a nicer car, more dining out — so the percentage actually saved stays flat even as the dollar amount going to lifestyle grows. Income goes up, net worth doesn't, because nothing extra was set aside to build it.
Yes — Real Cost of a Raise looks at a single pay rise: what it's worth after tax and typical lifestyle inflation, right now. This HENRY calculator looks at your whole career: it compounds many years of raises under two paths (spend every raise vs. save a share of each one) to show the long-run wealth gap between them.