moneyio: Easy Personal Finance Overview

They say small things please small minds but I just love the simplicity of this app that allows you to see the breakdown of your salary and then see the effect of potential changes to you circumstances.

On one screen you can enter your annual gross salary and moneyio.com will give you a breakdown of it showing deductions and the net figure on a yearly, monthly and weekly basis. Statutory deductions like tax and NI are assumed on a default basis with the current rates pre-set. If one or both of these don’t apply then you can delete them.

Obviously if you can delete something then you can also add something and so it is with this site. Any additional items can be added like student loan repayments that come straight out of your salary. Likewise if your employer offers interest free loans to purchase annual travelcards then this repayable amount can be entered as a direct salary deduction giving you a bespoke illustration of what is really going to end up in your bank account.

OK you might say, my payslip tells me this anyway and you have a point. The great thing about it though is that circumstances change, especially the cost of items which usually go up. Rail companies generally advertise their fare increases well in advance and so you can enter this information and get an indication on how it will impact on your net income. Conversely of course you can add any percentage wage increase promised.

As well as giving you a breakdown in figures moneyio.com also sets it out in a pie chart so you can see at a glance what’s happening. Of course you don’t have to stop at direct deductions to your salary. You can use the app as a general expenses tracker, add all outgoings and see what the bottom line is in respect of disposable income.

The site also has an income tax calculator where you can enter some basic details like your tax code and it will breakdown your tax on a clear chart showing you exactly how the deductions are calculated.

Conclusion
I think this is a great little tool that can quickly give you an insight into how things will look as a result of salary and tax changes and should make planning for the future easier in terms of cutting back or indeed saving more. OK so you could probably do it all yourself on Excel but quite frankly why bother when the formulas are already there?