Visualize money
Every money concept is a mechanism unfolding over time — and time is the one thing a static chart cannot show. These scenes move, and every figure in them is computed by the same code behind our calculators.
Money flows
Where a paycheck actually goes
The gap between the salary you negotiated and the money that arrives is four separate deductions, and only one of them is the tax most people think about. Width is magnitude — the streams are drawn in proportion to the money moving through them.
A $85,000 salary in CA with a 6% 401(k) contribution. Take-home is $58,567 — 69% of what you negotiated. The 401(k) stream leaves your paycheck too, but unlike the others it is still your money.
Money grows
Compounding does almost nothing, then everything
Each column is five more years of the same monthly contribution. The dark base is money you put in; the green above it is growth. Watch where the green overtakes the dark — that crossover is why starting early beats saving more.
Year 5
$36k
$6k of it growth
Year 10
$87k
$27k of it growth
Year 15
$158k
$68k of it growth
Year 20
$260k
$140k of it growth
Year 25
$405k
$255k of it growth
Year 30
$610k
$430k of it growth
Year 35
$901k
$691k of it growth
Year 40
$1.3M
$1.1M of it growth
Money decays
The same debt, two speeds
Both lines are the same balance at the same rate. Only the monthly payment differs. Watch how long the red line stays nearly flat — that is interest consuming most of each payment, and it is why minimum payments feel like running in sand.
Same $8,000 balance, same 23% APR. Doubling the payment does not halve the time — it cuts it by 66% and saves $5,145 in interest.
Money is taxed in layers
Your income does not sit on the top step
Height is the tax rate, so the steps genuinely climb. The solid blue steps are the ones your income actually reached; it fills each one completely before any of it spills upward. Only the highest step you touch is partly filled — which is why a raise can never leave you worse off.
A $145,000 salary, less the $15,700 standard deduction, leaves $129,300 taxable. It fills the lower steps completely and the 24% step only partly — total federal tax $23,879, an effective 16.5% against a 24% marginal rate.
Money, across everyone
The shape of American wealth
Real Federal Reserve survey data: age along one axis, percentile along the other, height as net worth. The 90th-percentile ridge climbs steeply with age while the 25th percentile stays almost flat across an entire working life. That divergence is the whole story of compounding, seen at population scale.
| Age | 25th | 50th | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18–24 | $88 | $10k | $34k | $185k |
| 30–34 | $11k | $89k | $186k | $539k |
| 40–44 | $24k | $134k | $437k | $1.2M |
| 50–54 | $54k | $266k | $913k | $2.6M |
| 60–64 | $80k | $393k | $1.1M | $3.0M |
| 70–74 | $125k | $439k | $1.2M | $3.0M |
| 80+ | $95k | $327k | $944k | $2.5M |
Household net worth from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, in 2023 dollars. Heights use a square-root scale — on a linear one, every row below the 90th percentile would be too small to see, which is itself the story.
Every figure here is computed, not drawn
No number on this page was typed by hand. Each scene calls the same functions behind our calculators, so a visualization can never disagree with the tool it links to. The wealth distribution is Federal Reserve survey data.
Read the explanations behind these