Frequently Asked Questions

• We never connect to your bank or any financial institution — you enter data manually.
• Your data is stored in a cloud PostgreSQL database (Neon) that provides encryption at rest and in transit by default.
• Access to your data requires authentication via a secure, short-lived session token.
• You can delete your account and all associated data at any time.

• Track is a snapshot of your finances today. You enter your actual current income, what you actually spend each month, and the real balances of your investments and debts. Think of it as your financial photo right now.
• Plan is a forward-looking model. Here you enter estimates — how your income might grow over time, what you expect to spend in future years, how fast your investments might grow, and when specific expenses start and stop. This powers the "what-if" analysis and Financial Independence projections.

The reason they're separate is that Track captures facts (what is true today) while Plan captures assumptions (what might be true in 5, 10, or 20 years). Mixing them would muddle your real picture with estimates.

You don't have to enter everything twice. You can import your Track data into Plan as a starting point — your current income, expenses, and investment values will be copied across.

After importing, you can then adjust the Plan figures to reflect your future expectations: maybe your salary grows 3% a year, a particular expense disappears in 2028, or you plan to start a new income stream. These forward-looking adjustments are what Track can't capture.

In short: Track = what's true now. Plan = what you expect to happen. The import feature bridges the two.

The Plan page is designed for exactly this kind of exploration. You can model things like:

• What if I increase my savings rate by 5%?
• What if I pay off my mortgage by 2030?
• What if I take a career break for 2 years?
• What if my investments grow at 6% instead of 8%?
• What if I retire at 55 instead of 65?

Because Plan data is separate from your live Track data, you can freely adjust figures and re-run projections without affecting your real financial snapshot.

Financial Independence (FI) means your passive income and investments can cover your living expenses indefinitely — so you no longer need to work to survive. You've reached FI when:

• Your investment portfolio generates enough returns to fund your expenses each year.
• You can sustain that withdrawl without depleting your wealth over your lifetime.
• You can still afford any financial goals (e.g. education, a house purchase) that you've committed to.

It doesn't mean you stop working — many FI-achieved people keep working because they love it. It just means work becomes a choice, not a necessity.

FinaviHub uses a Sustainable FI test rather than the simple 4% rule. For each future year, it asks: "If you stopped all income right now, could your accessible investments fund your expenses and goals for the next 50 years without running out?"

This is more rigorous than the 4% rule because it:

• Accounts for taxes on withdrawals (using a country-specific 5-step tax-optimised waterfall).
• Distinguishes between accessible and locked funds (e.g. pension funds you can't touch until 60 don't count for early retirement).
• Includes your financial goals — FI is only declared if you can also afford your committed goals without income.
• Tests for a full 50-year horizon to account for long retirements.

Total Net Worth is everything you own minus everything you owe — including pension pots, property equity, and locked accounts you can't touch for years.

Accessible Net Worth is the portion of that wealth you can actually use right now (or within a short period). It excludes:

• Pension / retirement accounts that are locked until a specific age.
• Investments that haven't yet reached their accessible date.

This distinction matters for FI calculations: you might have £1M in total net worth, but if £700k is locked in a pension you can't access until age 57, your accessible wealth is only £300k — which is what counts for early retirement sustainability.

The standard FI projection uses fixed rates (e.g. "investments grow 7% every year"). But in reality, markets go up and down — some years are great, some are terrible.

Monte Carlo analysis runs thousands of simulated futures, each with slightly different investment returns, inflation, and income growth. This gives you three scenarios:

• Best case (90th percentile) — things go well; you reach FI earlier.
• Median (50th percentile) — roughly average markets; the middle-ground outcome.
• Worst case (10th percentile) — things go poorly; you reach FI later.

Crucially, all three scenarios use the same financial logic as the baseline projection — only the growth rates vary. This means if your plan looks good in the worst-case scenario, you can be confident it's genuinely robust.

FinaviHub runs 1,000–5,000 trials and uses a technique called a Halton sequence to ensure they are well-spread (rather than random clusters), giving accurate and stable percentile results.

The 4% rule is a popular rule of thumb: if you have 25× your annual expenses invested, you can withdraw 4% per year indefinitely. For example, £40k/year expenses → need £1M invested.

FinaviHub shows your Traditional FI figure (based on 4%) for reference, but its primary calculation uses the more rigorous Sustainable FI approach (see above). Sustainable FI is typically more conservative because it accounts for taxes, locked funds, and your specific goals — which the simple 4% rule ignores.

1. Financial Stress — Negative cash flow; spending more than you earn.
2. Financial Stability — 1–3 months emergency fund built up.
3. Debt Freedom — 6 months emergency fund and debt payments ≤ 36% of income.
4. Financial Security — 1 year of expenses invested.
5. Financial Flexibility — 5 years of expenses invested.
6. Financial Independence — Investments can sustain your lifestyle indefinitely (25× expenses by the 4% rule, or via Sustainable FI testing).
7. Abundant Wealth — 40+ years of expenses invested; significant wealth surplus.

Pension contributions are tricky because the money never hits your bank account, yet it's still yours — it's being invested for your future. The key principle is: add the contribution as income, then also deduct it as an Investment / Retirement expense. This way it cancels out of your cash flow but is correctly counted as saving, not spending.

Choose the approach that matches how you record your income:

Option A — You enter your net (take-home) pay (most common)

1. Keep your net salary as your income entry (what lands in your bank account).
2. Add an extra income line for the pension contribution amount (e.g. "Pension Contribution").
3. Add an expense of the same amount categorised as Investment / Retirement.

Example: Take-home pay £4,500/month. Pension contribution £500/month. Add £500 income + £500 Investment/Retirement expense. Net effect on cash flow: zero — but the contribution is captured as saving.

Option B — You enter your gross (pre-tax) salary

1. Enter the full gross salary as income.
2. Add the pension contribution as an expense categorised as Investment / Retirement.

Example: Gross salary £60,000/year, pension £6,000/year. Income = £60,000, add £6,000 Investment/Retirement expense.

Either way, the contribution is counted as money going to work for you — not lost spending — which keeps your savings rate and net worth calculations accurate.

The same principle as Track applies — add the contribution as income, then deduct it as an Investment / Retirement expense so it cancels from cash flow but is counted as saving. In Plan there is one extra step: you also need to set the Annual Contribution on the investment itself, otherwise the projection won't grow your pension from new money — only from returns.

Option A — You use net (take-home) pay as income (most common)

1. Income: Enter your net salary. Add a separate income line for the pension contribution (e.g. "Pension Contribution" = £6,000/year).
2. Expenses: Add the same £6,000 as an expense categorised as Investment / Retirement. Net cash flow impact: zero.
3. Investments: Set Annual Contribution = £6,000 on your pension / retirement investment entry.

Option B — You use gross (pre-tax) salary as income

1. Income: Enter your gross salary.
2. Expenses: Add the pension contribution as an expense categorised as Investment / Retirement.
3. Investments: Set Annual Contribution = the yearly pension contribution on your pension investment entry.

Step 3 is the critical one unique to Plan — it tells the projection engine that fresh money is flowing into the pension each year, so it compounds correctly over decades. Without it, the forecast will significantly underestimate your pension pot at retirement.

Example: £6,000/year pension contribution. Add £6,000 income (pension) + £6,000 Investment/Retirement expense + set Annual Contribution = £6,000 on the pension investment.

Your monthly mortgage payment (EMI) has two components: interest (a real cost) and principal repayment (which builds equity in your home). They need to be treated differently:

1. Expenses: Enter your full annual mortgage payment as an expense (e.g. categorised as Housing). This captures the real cash leaving your account each year.
2. Investments: Add your home as an investment (e.g. "Primary Residence") with its current market value. Then set the Annual Contribution field to the principal portion of your yearly payments — this is roughly half your total annual mortgage payment as a starting estimate (early in a mortgage the split is more interest-heavy; later it flips toward principal).

Setting the Annual Contribution on the home investment tells the projection that your equity is growing each year from repayments, not just from house price appreciation. Without it, the plan would underestimate your net worth.

Example: Monthly mortgage £1,500 (£18,000/year). As a rough starting estimate, set Annual Contribution on your home investment to £9,000 (≈ half). Adjust as you get closer to the end of your mortgage term when more of your payment is principal.

Tip: Your mortgage statement or lender's online portal will usually show you the exact principal vs interest split for the current year — use that for a more precise figure.