Why I built this (and why there are adverts)
It started, as most bad ideas do, late one evening with a cup of tea and a nagging question: will my pension actually last?
Simple enough, I thought. Someone must have built a calculator for this. The internet has calculators for everything. You can work out how many bananas tall you are. Surely one of them could tell me whether I'd be living on beans at 82.
Reader, I found calculators. Lots of them.
The calculator safari
The first one asked for my age, my pension pot, and my email address. Fair enough, I thought, perhaps it'll send me the results. It did. It also sent me eleven emails over the next fortnight, each with a subject line more urgent than the last. By day nine it was "We need to talk about your future", which is a lot of emotional pressure from a company I'd spoken to once.
The second one was beautifully designed. Lovely sliders. Satisfying colours. Right at the end, just as the answer was about to appear, it asked whether I'd like a free consultation with an adviser. Then it asked for my phone number. Then it showed me a picture of a smiling couple on a beach, who did not look like they'd ever had to worry about anything, least of all a pension.
The third one gave me an answer, which was progress. Unfortunately the answer was a single number, worked out as if the stock market goes up by exactly the same amount every year, like a well-behaved escalator. Anyone who has looked at their pension statement after a bad year knows the stock market is less escalator and more fairground ride.
The fourth one wanted me to log in. To a calculator. I just wanted to do some sums, not join a club.
What I actually wanted
By now the tea had gone cold and I had a list. I wanted something that would:
- not ask who I am. No email, no phone number, no account.
- not try to sell me anything. No products, no providers, no "speak to our experts today".
- keep my numbers on my own computer. My pension pot is between me, my bank and my mild anxiety.
- be honest about uncertainty. Not one magic number, but a range: how it might go if markets are kind, and if they're not.
- understand UK tax properly. Tax-free cash, the Personal Allowance, Scottish bands, the State Pension, the lot.
- speak English. Actual English. Not "decumulation strategy optimisation".
I couldn't find it. So, in the grand British tradition of muttering "how hard can it be?" before discovering exactly how hard it can be, I built it.
How it works (the short version)
Everything you type stays in your browser. There's no server receiving your details, because there's nowhere for them to go. Close the tab and it's as if you were never here, apart from the warm glow of having done some retirement planning.
Under the bonnet, it runs 1,000 possible futures for markets and inflation, based on the same growth assumptions pension providers use for their yearly statements. It works out UK tax each year. It shows you a typical outcome, a tougher one, and how often the money lasts. If you'd like the full nerdy detail, it's all on the methodology page.
What it won't do is tell you what to do. It's not advice, and it's not trying to be. It shows you scenarios and trade-offs, and you decide. You're the grown-up here.
"So why are there adverts?"
Ah. Yes. Good question.
It turns out that websites aren't free to run. There's hosting, domain names, and the occasional large coffee needed to fix a bug at midnight. I didn't want to charge for it, sell anyone's data (I don't have any data, which makes that easier), or quietly push you towards a particular pension provider in exchange for a commission.
So the site shows a few adverts from Google, in clearly labelled boxes, and never inside your results. They pay the bills. You'll be asked whether Google can use cookies to personalise them, and you can say no; the calculator works exactly the same either way. You can change your mind with the "Cookie settings" link at the bottom of every page.
There are no affiliate links, no paid partnerships, and nobody gets a commission if you click something. The adverts are the deal: you get a calculator that doesn't want your email address, and the site keeps the lights on.
What's next
It'll keep improving. Tax rules change every year (sometimes several times a year, depending on how many Budgets we're having), and I'll keep the figures up to date. Each figure comes from GOV.UK or the Financial Reporting Council, with its source written down next to it.
If it helps you get a clearer picture of your retirement, without anyone trying to sell you a holiday in the brochure, then it's done its job.
And if you've ever been emailed eleven times by a calculator, I see you. Have a fresh cup of tea. This one's on me.
For free, impartial guidance from people who also aren't selling anything, there's MoneyHelper and Pension Wise, both backed by the government.