Free tools for expensive decisions
Every tool here started as a question I couldn't get answered in under an hour. Not because the information was secret. Because it was scattered across nine articles that each held a third of it, or buried mid-page inside something a bank wanted me to open an account with.
These run the arithmetic and give you a number. Where the math rests on an assumption, the assumption is published with its source. Where a tool can't answer something, it says so instead of finding something encouraging to say.
The tools
Second Income Calculator
What a second income is actually worth each month after daycare, taxes, and getting to work. Uses your marginal rate, which is the part most versions of this calculation get wrong.
Stay-at-Home Parent Cost Calculator
The thirty-year cost of a career break: lost wages, lost wage growth, and lost retirement, net of the childcare you wouldn't pay. Two to four times your salary per year out.
Nanny vs. Daycare Calculator
The child count — often 3 or 4 on national rates — where a nanny beats daycare on cost, at your own rates, with employer payroll taxes counted on the nanny side.
Stay-at-Home Mom Replacement Value Calculator
What it would cost to hire out the childcare, cooking and housework at home — $48,329 a year at Denver rates with a child under 6, priced from your own hours, your kids' ages and your metro's wages.
What you won't find here
No email capture. No newsletter, no lead magnet, no free PDF in exchange for an address.
Nothing for sale. The tools are aimed at questions where the honest answer is sometimes "don't buy anything," which is roughly why no financial institution has built them.
The site will run display ads once it's large enough to qualify. That changes nothing about the outputs, and it's the entire business model, so there's no reason to be coy about it.
Who makes this
Jessica Winkler. Colorado, four kids, twins first, and a household where childcare has outrun the mortgage for six years running. Every tool here is one I built for a decision I was actually making.
Not financial advice, and not personalized to your situation. See the terms.