Course
How money loses value
Work out what a sum of money is really worth — this year, in ten, and in forty.
The shape of it
12 lessons
About 64 minutes in total. Your progress is kept on this device — no account, nothing sent anywhere.
Course complete
Put your name on it and print it, or save it as a PDF. Nothing is sent anywhere.
The lessons
What a price is
4 lessons · about 21 min01A price is a swap
Tell apart a thing getting dearer and money getting weaker.
About 5 min
02One number for every price
Work out how one inflation figure is made from thousands of prices.
About 5 min
03A speed, not a level
Read an inflation rate as how fast prices climb, never how high they are.
About 5 min
04Why the average is not your rate
Work out your own rate from what you actually buy.
About 6 min
Money and time
4 lessons · about 21 min05Small rates, long years
Work out how long a rate takes to double prices.
About 5 min
06The rate you get and the rate you keep
Work out what savings really earn once prices have moved.
About 5 min
07Pay against prices
Tell whether a pay rise is a rise at all.
About 5 min
08Who gains and who pays
Predict who comes out ahead when money weakens: savers, borrowers, fixed incomes.
About 6 min
The system behind it
4 lessons · about 23 min09Where money comes from
Trace a bank loan from the moment it creates money to the moment it destroys it.
About 6 min
10What a rate rise can reach
Predict which price rises a central bank can touch, and which it cannot.
About 6 min
11When it runs away
Explain how expecting prices to rise makes them rise.
About 6 min
12Taking a money headline apart
Spot which of the course's ideas a real headline is hiding.
About 6 min