The phrase comes from the casino floor: once you've pocketed winnings equal to what you walked in with, you're gambling with "the house's money" — psychologically, you can't lose your own anymore. (Behavioral economists call the way people take bigger risks afterward the house money effect.)
Income investors borrowed the phrase for a specific milestone: the day a fund's distributions add up to your entire original investment. Every check after that lands on top of money you already got back. With high-yield weekly payers, that day can arrive in a few years — which is why "are you on house money yet?" is a constant question in income-investing communities, and why this calculator exists.
"House money" is the moment your fund's distributions have handed back every dollar you put in. For high-yield weekly payers it's the number everyone quietly tracks — and usually estimates by hand. This page computes it from the fund's actual payment record: every distribution per share since your buy date, times your shares.
What it deliberately doesn't do is flatter you. Distributions from high-yield funds are often partly return of capital — your own money coming back, lowering your cost basis while the share price drifts down. That's why the full-picture box above always shows distributions plus current share value against what you invested. House money is a milestone worth celebrating; it just isn't the same thing as profit.
Assumptions: you held the whole time, took distributions as cash (no reinvesting), and all figures are pre-tax. The projection uses the fund's recent payout pace, which will change — payouts on these funds move with markets and volatility. See any fund's full record on its payment-history chart.