# A Few Quid > A Few Quid is a UK personal-finance planning tool. Enter your income, housing, debt, savings, pensions and investments to project net worth and retirement over decades, run what-if simulations (raises, kids, house moves, retirement timing), and compare scenarios with an optimiser. Free taster available with no sign-up. Important: A Few Quid is a calculator and is NOT authorised or regulated by the FCA. Nothing on the site is a personal recommendation or financial advice; all figures are projections based on user-supplied inputs and assumptions. Base URL: https://afewquid.com ## Guides - [Rent vs Buy in the UK: When Buying Wins, When Renting Wins, and How to Tell](https://afewquid.com/articles/rent-vs-buy-uk): Whether renting or buying builds more wealth in the UK depends on rates, how often you move, and what your deposit could earn. Model the break-even. - [How Much Do You Need to Retire in the UK: The Deep Dive](https://afewquid.com/articles/how-much-to-retire-uk): Pension pot sizes, PLSA benchmarks, withdrawal rates and the state pension, worked through. The UK-specific way to model your own retirement number. ## Calculators - [Mortgage calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/mortgage): Estimate monthly mortgage repayments from price, deposit, rate and term. - [Mortgage overpayment calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/mortgage-overpayment): See how much interest and time overpaying a mortgage saves. - [Stamp duty calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/stamp-duty): Calculate UK Stamp Duty Land Tax, including first-time-buyer and additional-property rates. - [ISA calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/isa): Project ISA growth within the annual allowance. - [Compound interest calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/compound-interest): Model compound growth of savings and investments over time. - [Salary / take-home calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/salary): Break down take-home pay after UK income tax, National Insurance and pension. - [FIRE calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/fire): Work out a FIRE (financial independence) number and the years to reach it. - [Student loan calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/student-loan): Estimate UK student-loan repayments and when the balance clears or is written off. - [Pension calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/pension): Project a pension pot and the income it could provide in retirement. - [Rent vs buy calculator](https://afewquid.com/calculators/rent-vs-buy): Compare the long-run cost of renting versus buying a UK home. ## Blog - [One pay rise, three different futures](https://afewquid.com/blog/one-payrise-three-futures): A raise can land three different ways depending on where it goes. Take home, pension, or ISA. Running the three futures side by side. - [Your partner's financial situation has tax implications on yours](https://afewquid.com/blog/partner-tax-implications): Child benefit, allowances, and joint planning depend on both incomes. Modelling your finances without your partner's leaves money on the table. - [Mortgage overpayment or invest? The honest comparison](https://afewquid.com/blog/mortgage-overpayment-or-invest): Overpaying the mortgage feels responsible. Investing the same money feels greedy. The numbers don't care about feelings. Run them. - [When your ISA allowance runs out, the GIA starts to bite](https://afewquid.com/blog/beyond-the-isa-allowance): The £20k ISA allowance is generous until you want to save more. What happens in a general investment account, and how CGT lands. - [The state pension is at 68. You would rather leave at 55](https://afewquid.com/blog/retire-before-state-pension): The state pension age keeps drifting. You don't have to wait for it. Here is how to model a finish line that sits a decade earlier. - [The what-if question you should actually be asking](https://afewquid.com/blog/what-if-questions-that-matter): Can I afford it is the wrong question. The useful one is what saying yes to this thing does to your net worth in twenty years. - [Joint finances without the awkward spreadsheet share](https://afewquid.com/blog/joint-finances-without-spreadsheets): Couples' money is two people, two salaries, two pensions, and a shared plan. Modelling it in a shared spreadsheet usually ends in a row. - [Bonus season: where the smart money actually goes](https://afewquid.com/blog/bonus-season-allocation): A UK bonus lands and most of it evaporates into tax. The interesting question is what the remaining chunk does over the next twenty years. - [Salary sacrifice is good. Is it better than an ISA?](https://afewquid.com/blog/salary-sacrifice-vs-isa): Salary sacrifice gets the tax relief and the NI saving. An ISA gets flexibility and tax-free withdrawal. Which one wins, and when. - [Why your spreadsheet is lying about your retirement](https://afewquid.com/blog/spreadsheet-vs-projection): Your retirement spreadsheet can't model UK tax bands, partner income, or what-if scenarios. That is why the numbers feel off. - [Can you actually retire early in the UK?](https://afewquid.com/blog/early-retirement-uk): UK early retirement has a structural problem. You can't touch your pension until 57. Here is how the ISA bridge fixes the gap. - [What a career break actually costs (hint, it isn't the salary)](https://afewquid.com/blog/true-cost-of-a-career-break): A year off work doesn't cost you one year of salary. It costs the pension contributions you skipped and the decades of growth on top. - [ISA or pension? The UK optimiser's oldest argument, settled properly](https://afewquid.com/blog/isa-or-pension-uk): ISA for flexibility, pension for tax relief. The honest answer is both, in the right order. A walkthrough of how the split actually works. - [The £100k tax trap, and the one lever that gets you out](https://afewquid.com/blog/the-100k-tax-trap): Earning over £100k in the UK costs you 60p in the pound thanks to the personal allowance taper. Here is how to model your way back under it. - [Why A Few Quid exists, and what it does for UK money](https://afewquid.com/blog/why-a-few-quid-exists): Most UK adults guess at their financial future, miss obvious tax breaks, and rely on US-centric advice. A Few Quid is a UK-first answer built on real projections. ## About & policies - [A Few Quid — home](https://afewquid.com/): What the product does: UK financial planning, projections and what-if simulations for pensions, ISAs, housing and retirement. - [Features](https://afewquid.com/features): The projection engine, what-if simulator, optimiser and dashboard, explained. - [Get started](https://afewquid.com/get-started): How to begin a free projection — no sign-up needed for the taster. - [About](https://afewquid.com/about): Who builds A Few Quid and why. - [Contact](https://afewquid.com/contact): How to get in touch. - [Risk warnings](https://afewquid.com/risk-warnings): Regulatory disclaimer — A Few Quid is a calculator, not FCA-authorised advice. - [Privacy policy](https://afewquid.com/privacy): How user data is handled. - [Terms of use](https://afewquid.com/terms): Terms and conditions for using the site.