How it works
From a few numbers to a year-by-year picture
Life Cashflow works through the arithmetic of the assumptions you set. You choose them, it shows what they lead to, and you can change any of them and see what moves.
Step 1: Set up your plan
The planner opens with a short set-up. Add who is in the plan, their ages and earnings, then pensions, savings, your home and what you spend. Round numbers are fine to begin with, and you can refine any of them later.
- One person or a couple.
- Workplace and personal pensions, final salary pensions and the State Pension.
- Cash, ISAs and general investment accounts, with growth rates you choose.
- Your home, any rental properties, mortgages and loans.
Step 2: See the projection
The planner works through each tax year to the end of the plan and shows income, tax, spending and balances in charts and a year-by-year table. If spending cannot be met in some year, the results say so in plain terms, with the year and the ages.
- Income by source, and the tax and National Insurance taken from it.
- Balances in every account at the end of each year.
Step 3: Explore scenarios
Copy your plan, change one thing, and see what moves: a retirement age, a spending level, a growth rate, how a pension is drawn. Each scenario is a complete plan of its own, so changing one never alters another.
- Duplicate a scenario in one step.
- Rename scenarios so you remember what each one tests.
Step 4: Compare
Set scenarios against each other to see where their results differ and by how much. A comparison describes the difference between two sets of assumptions. It does not say which one is better, and it cannot know what you value.
- Pick the scenarios to set against each other.
- Change a scenario and compare again.
What “today’s money” means
Prices rise over time, so £1,000 in 20 years will not buy what £1,000 buys now. A projection that mixes the two can be hard to read. Life Cashflow can show every amount in either of two ways:
- Today's prices adjusts each future amount for the inflation assumption, so it can be compared with prices you know now.
- Each year's prices shows the amounts as they would appear in that year, on a payslip or a statement.
It is one calculation expressed two ways, and a switch above the results moves between them. The table shows the effect of inflation of 2.5% a year, the planner's starting assumption. The inflation rate in your plan is yours to change.
| Years from now | £1,000 of spending today costs, in future pounds | £1,000 in future pounds is worth, in today's money |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | £1,280 | £781 |
| 20 | £1,639 | £610 |
| 30 | £2,098 | £477 |
How couples work
Add a partner and fill in their details. Each person has their own age, earnings, pensions, ISAs and tax position, and a couple can be married, civil partners or cohabiting.
- Tax is worked out for each person separately, with their own allowances and bands.
- Joint accounts and properties are split between the two by the ownership share you enter.
- A view shows how the two plans interact: which allowances are used, who draws what, and what changes after the first death.
- Some choices, such as Marriage Allowance and drawing from whichever partner pays the lower rate, are settings you can switch on or off.
The guides explain each of these rules in detail.
Saving, opening and exporting your plan
Your plan is held in your browser while you work and is never sent to us. To keep it, save it to a file on your own device.
- Use the File menu in the planner to save your plan. The file is plain text and holds every scenario in the plan.
- To carry on later, or on another device, open the file from the same menu.
- Files saved from earlier versions of Life Cashflow are converted when you open them.
Keep your file somewhere safe
If you use an AI assistant, an optional connection can explain the file format to it and build a file for you to open here. Whatever the assistant produces, the assumptions in it come from what you tell it, so check them in the planner before reading anything into the results. There is a plain-text summary for AI tools at /llms.txt.
What to keep in mind
A projection is an estimate built on assumptions that will turn out wrong in some way. Life Cashflow does not choose assumptions for you, point you to a product or course of action, or take account of your wider circumstances. If you want personal advice, the guide to guidance and advice explains how people go about it.
Try it with your own numbers
Free, with no account needed. Your plan stays in your browser and is saved to a file you control.
Information only, not financial advice.