Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms behind the calculators. Each entry links back to the relevant tools so you can see the math in action.

Finance

The schedule by which an installment loan's balance is paid down over time.

The yearly cost of a loan, expressed as a percentage that includes interest plus mandatory fees.

Interest earned on the original principal plus all previously-accumulated interest.

The share of your gross monthly income that goes to debt payments.

The annualized rate at which a series of cash flows breaks even — the discount rate that makes net present value zero.

Principal, Interest, Taxes, Insurance — the four components of a mortgage payment.

Total tax divided by total income — your overall, average tax rate.

The rate of tax that applies to the next dollar you earn — not your overall tax rate.

A flat amount you can subtract from gross income before tax is computed, without itemizing.

Calories your body burns at complete rest just to keep its systems running.

Weight (kg) divided by height squared (m²). A coarse population-level screening number.

The total calories you burn in a typical day — basal metabolism plus activity.

A measure of how spread out a set of numbers is around their mean.

How many standard deviations a value is from the mean of its distribution.

A 128-bit identifier designed so that, in practice, no two are ever the same.

The W3C standard that defines what makes web content accessible to users with disabilities.

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