AI Governance Disclosure

1. What futurecost.ai is, and is not

futurecost.ai is an educational illustration tool. It shows you, for a purchase amount and frequency you choose, what the same money might grow to over a horizon you choose if invested at an assumed annual rate of return. The tool exists to make the long-term opportunity cost of small recurring expenses concrete and visible.

futurecost.ai is not a financial plan, a prediction of future wealth, or a recommendation to make or avoid any particular purchase. It is not investment advice or financial advice of any kind. Wieneke Legal, LLC is not a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, or financial planner, and no advisory relationship is created by your use of this tool.

2. The role of AI in this tool

We want to be precise here because the phrase "AI-powered" is widely used in ways that obscure rather than inform. In futurecost.ai:

• AI was used in building the tool. AI coding assistance was used during design, development, content drafting, and accessibility work. In that sense the tool was built with AI.
• AI is not used in the calculation. The dollar figures you see are produced by deterministic compound-interest formulas running in your browser. No large language model, machine-learning model, or other AI system is involved in producing any number shown on this site.
• AI is not used to personalize, profile, or score you. The tool takes no input about you other than the purchase amount, frequency, rate, and time horizon you choose. It makes no determinations about you as an individual.

We disclose this plainly because characterizing a deterministic calculator as "AI-powered" in its computational substance would overstate the AI's role. Where you see "AI" referenced on this site, it refers to how the tool was built and to the broader AI governance work of Wieneke Legal, LLC, not to AI acting as the calculator.

3. How the calculation works

For recurring purchases (daily, weekly, monthly), the tool computes the future value of an ordinary annuity of equal annual contributions equal to the annualized purchase amount, using standard compound-interest math at the selected annual return rate, over the selected number of years.

For one-time purchases, the tool computes the future value of a single present amount at the same rate and time horizon.

A secondary figure — "in today's dollars" — applies a 3% annual inflation assumption to express the nominal future amount in present-value terms, so you can see roughly what the money would be worth in purchasing-power terms rather than just nominal dollars.

All computation happens in your browser. No calculation inputs or outputs are transmitted to or stored on our servers.

4. Why the default return rate is 6%

The default annual return rate is 6%. You may adjust it upward or downward using the slider. This default is a deliberate governance choice, not a marketing choice, and we think it deserves a plain explanation.

A common default for compound-interest illustrators is 8–10%, anchored to long-run nominal historical returns of the broad US stock market. Those figures are defensible as a description of the market's gross historical performance, but they tend to overstate what a typical long-term retail investor actually experiences. Realized returns are reduced by fund expenses, by taxes, by the fact that most real portfolios are not 100% equities, and — empirically — by the behavioral gap between the returns funds earn and the returns investors earn from those funds.

6% is our attempt to pick a default that:

• Reflects a reasonable long-run expected nominal return for a diversified retail portfolio, net of typical fund expenses and a realistic allowance for asset allocation and behavioral effects
• Does not overstate what a user is likely to experience
• Still produces figures large enough to make the tool's educational point — that small recurring expenses compound meaningfully over decades
• Can be adjusted by any user who believes a different assumption is more appropriate for their situation

Reasonable people can disagree on the right default. You can move the slider. The documentation of our reasoning is more important than the specific number chosen.

5. Assumptions and limitations

The figures shown by futurecost.ai are illustrative, not predictive. Specifically:

• Returns are assumed, not known. Actual investment returns over any future period may be substantially higher or lower than any rate selected in this tool. Past performance does not predict future returns.
• Returns are smoothed, not realistic. The math assumes a constant annual return. Real markets are volatile; sequence-of-returns risk matters, especially for investors near the end of a long horizon.
• Taxes are not modeled. The figures are pre-tax. Taxable accounts, tax-advantaged accounts, and different investment types are taxed differently and may substantially reduce realized returns.
• Fees are not separately modeled. The 6% default implicitly assumes a reasonable level of investment expenses. Actual expenses in your accounts may be higher or lower.
• Inflation is approximated. The "today's dollars" figure uses a 3% annual inflation assumption, which is a long-run approximation. Actual inflation will vary.
• Individual circumstances are not considered. The tool does not consider your income, expenses, debts, time horizon, risk tolerance, tax situation, insurance needs, or any other factor relevant to a real financial decision.
• The "retirement income," "college tuition," and "flights to Paris" comparisons are rough illustrations only, based on simple assumptions (for example, a 4% withdrawal rate, an arbitrary tuition figure, and an arbitrary flight cost). They are intended to make the future value tangible, not to plan a retirement, a college, or a trip.

6. This is not investment or financial advice

Nothing shown by futurecost.ai constitutes investment advice, financial planning advice, tax advice, or legal advice. Wieneke Legal, LLC is not a registered investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 or any state equivalent. No advisory relationship is created by your use of this tool.

If you are considering real changes to your spending, saving, or investing based on what you see here, we encourage you to consult with a qualified financial adviser, tax professional, or other appropriate licensed professional before acting.

7. Data and privacy

futurecost.ai collects no personal information about any user, ever, for any purpose. All calculation happens in your browser. We do not operate analytics tracking, do not set cookies of our own, do not use behavioral tracking technologies, do not collect email addresses, and do not participate in any affiliate or referral programs.

This is a design commitment, not a current-state description with future hedging. If this ever changes, this disclosure and our Privacy Policy will be updated before any such change takes effect.

8. Shareable output and social propagation

The tool offers a "share card" that presents the calculated figure alongside a short caption. If you share this on a social platform, the numeric result travels with your post. Because the receiving audience will not see the input assumptions, the share card is designed to include the time horizon and return rate used, and to identify the source as futurecost.ai.

We note this as a governance consideration because downstream viewers of shared results see a dollar figure without the full context of the assumptions behind it. Users choosing to share are encouraged to include the assumption context in any accompanying caption, and we retain the horizon-and-rate annotation on the share card for that reason.

9. Human oversight and adjustable assumptions

Every assumption that drives a figure in this tool is visible and adjustable by the user:

• Purchase amount and frequency are user-entered
• Return rate is a slider, defaulting to 6% as discussed above, adjustable from 4% to 14%
• Time horizon is a slider, adjustable from 5 to 40 years

The tool is designed so that a user who disagrees with our defaults can immediately see the effect of their own preferred assumptions. Nothing about the output is hidden, locked, or personalized based on unseen factors.

10. Regulatory and framework awareness

futurecost.ai is a simple consumer educational tool and is not a high-risk AI system under any current regulatory framework we are aware of. Nevertheless, we have designed the product and this disclosure with awareness of:

• The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) — the Govern, Map, Measure, and Manage functions shape how we think about the tool's risk profile, its disclosures, and its review cadence.
• FTC guidance on AI marketing claims — our description of the AI's role in this tool (see Section 2) is written to accurately reflect what AI does and does not do, rather than to market the tool as AI-driven where it is not.
• State AI disclosure and consumer protection laws — we monitor the evolving state-level landscape of AI disclosure requirements and consumer protection rules and will update this disclosure and the tool as appropriate.
• Investment adviser and financial services regulation — the tool is structured and disclosed to avoid presenting as investment advice.
• Consumer privacy frameworks including CCPA/CPRA and GDPR, addressed in our Privacy Policy.

11. Governance and credentials

futurecost.ai is published by Wieneke Legal, LLC. Its AI governance program — including the framework mapping, the disclosure you are reading, the default-assumption rationale, and the ongoing review cadence — is also designed and maintained by Wieneke Legal.

Wieneke Legal, LLC is an Alabama law firm. Governance work is led by Timothy Wieneke, whose relevant credentials include:

• AIGP — AI Governance Professional (IAPP certified)
• JD — Juris Doctorate, Stetson University College of Law
• CPCU — Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter

The design of this tool reflects an intentional application of AI governance principles to a low-risk consumer product: transparent disclosure of AI's actual role, conservative default assumptions, visible and adjustable inputs, plain-language limitations, and clear separation from investment advice.

12. Review schedule

This disclosure is reviewed at least annually and updated whenever material changes are made to the tool, the underlying assumptions, or the applicable regulatory landscape. The current version was last reviewed in April 2026.

13. Contact

Questions about this disclosure, about the tool's governance design, about the tool's operation, or about Wieneke Legal's AI governance practice can be directed to:

Wieneke Legal, LLC
Timothy Wieneke, Esq.
wieneke.law