Guides

Why We Write These Guides

Calculators give you a number. Guides explain what that number means and what to do with it. The tools on this site produce results — but the decisions you make based on those results involve judgment calls that no calculator can make for you. These guides bridge that gap.

Each guide is written to be read in under 10 minutes — long enough to cover the topic properly, short enough to be genuinely useful when you're trying to make a real decision rather than just researching abstractly. They're structured to answer the question you actually came with, not to impress you with comprehensive coverage you won't read.

What Each Guide Covers

The stamp duty guide cuts through rules that have changed multiple times in recent years and differ across England, Scotland, and Wales. It explains not just the bands but the relief schemes — first-time buyer relief, the higher rate for additional properties, and the situations where the rules interact in unintuitive ways.

The redundancy guide exists because being made redundant is one of the most financially and emotionally disorienting things that can happen at work. Knowing exactly what you're entitled to, what constitutes a genuine redundancy, and what your options are if something feels wrong makes a practical difference in how you navigate the process.

The mortgage affordability guide explains not just the mechanics of how mortgages work but what lenders actually look at when assessing an application — stress tests, affordability calculations, and the factors that can cause an offer to be declined even when the income multiple looks fine on paper.

The rent vs buy guide confronts the question with actual maths, including the opportunity cost of a deposit that most comparisons ignore. Whether buying is "better" than renting depends on assumptions about house price growth, investment returns, and your likely tenure — this guide shows you how to stress-test those assumptions with your own numbers.

The compound interest guide is the most universally relevant piece on this site. The principle applies whether you're saving, investing, repaying debt, or calculating penalty interest. Understanding why early action is worth so much more than later action — and what the Rule of 72 tells you at a glance — is one of the most financially impactful things you can internalise.

The pet medication guide covers a genuinely underserved topic. Most pet owners learn about their animal's medication from a 2-minute vet consultation and a label on a bottle. Understanding what a drug is actually doing, what side effects to watch for, and why dosing is weight-based rather than flat gives you the information to be a more effective advocate for your pet's care.