CONSIDERED FINANCIAL TOOLKIT

Should I Buy This?

Understand what a purchase will really cost you before you decide. This tool works out total ownership cost, cost per use and financing cost, and compares it against buying used, keeping what you have, repairing, renting or another product — it won't tell you whether to buy it.

✓ Everything runs and stays in your browser — your financial inputs are never sent to Considered ✓ No account, no login, nothing saved unless you choose to keep this tab open ✓ No Buy / Don't Buy verdict — scenarios and comparisons only, the decision stays yours

Should I Buy This? v1.0 Added August 2026 Release notes

1. WHAT ARE YOU CONSIDERING?

Product or purchase Category

Condition Usage is measured in

2. PURCHASE & OWNERSHIP

Purchase price£ One-off setup / accessory costs£ Expected ownership periodyrs

Expected resale value at end of ownershipLeave at £0 if you'll keep it until it's worthless, or expect to dispose of it for nothing£

3. EXPECTED USAGE

Expected usageuses Per

Target cost per use for break-even (optional)Used only for the break-even figure below — leave blank to skip it£

4. RUNNING & MAINTENANCE COSTS

Energy/fuel, consumables, subscriptions, insurance, servicing, accessories — add each one separately.

ADD A RUNNING COST

Label Amount£

Frequency

5. FINANCING

Monthly-payment framing can make a purchase look cheaper than it is — the total finance cost is always shown alongside the monthly figure below.

6. Opportunity cost Optional, advanced — what the upfront money could hypothetically become if invested instead

7. Affordability context Optional, advanced — context only, never a verdict on what you can or can't afford

8. COMPARE ALTERNATIVES

Add anything you're weighing this against — buying used, keeping what you have, repairing it, renting, a subscription, or a different product entirely. Shown side by side further down, in the order you add them — not ranked by anything other than the numbers you enter.

ADD AN ALTERNATIVE

Label Type

Price / cost to get started£ Combined running costs£/yr Resale value at end£

Ownership periodyrs Expected usage Per

What this purchase will really cost

Rounded appropriately — treat every figure here as a considered estimate built from the assumptions you entered, not exact prediction.

Estimated ownership cost—Over the ownership period you entered

Cost per year—Averaged across the ownership period

Cost per use—At your expected usage

Low-use scenario—If usage falls to 25% of expected

Estimated resale—Included in the ownership cost above

Finance cost—Interest and fees, on top of the price

Opportunity cost—Shown separately — an assumption, not a forecast

Affordability context—Context only, not a verdict

How the ownership cost breaks down

Purchase price—

Setup / accessory costs—

Running & maintenance costs (over ownership)—

Less: expected resale value—

Total ownership cost—

"What if I stop using it?"

This is factual, not a judgement on a discretionary purchase — usage naturally changes over time.

Or model stopping altogether afteryrs Resale value at that point (optional)£

Usage break-even

Uses/year needed to hit your target—

Your target—

Financing detail

Monthly payment—

Total repaid—

Total finance cost—

This is a cost estimate, not a credit recommendation or offer of finance.

Opportunity cost detail

Hypothetical future value—

Hypothetical gain—

An assumed return applied to the upfront amount — not a forecast, and not a bill. Shown here separately from the ownership cost above.

Affordability context detail

Context only — this tool never states whether a purchase is affordable. Something can be affordable but poor value, or good value but unaffordable for a particular person; only you can weigh that up.

Alternatives, side by side

Listed in the order you added them. Nothing here is ranked or reordered by anything other than the ownership-cost figures shown — see the affiliate disclosure below for how retailer links are kept separate from this.

Decided it may be worth it?

We don't know today's price for certain, so it may be worth checking before you buy. If you find a lower current price, come back and update the purchase price above to recalculate.

A note on how to read this This is educational and illustrative only, not financial advice. Every figure here is a considered estimate built from the assumptions you entered — change any of them and the results change too. This tool never outputs a Buy / Don't Buy verdict: it gives you the real cost picture and lets you weigh that against everything a number can't capture, like need, enjoyment and timing.

Common mistakes this tool tries to avoid

Quoting the sticker price as "the cost" — running costs, financing and resale value all change what a purchase actually costs you over time.
Letting a low monthly-payment figure hide a high total finance cost — the total is always shown alongside the monthly figure.
Treating opportunity cost as a bill you owe — it's a labelled assumption about what else the money could have become, shown separately, not folded into the headline cost.
Saying "you can't afford this" — affordability context is presented as context only; only you know how it fits your wider situation.
Ranking alternatives by anything other than the numbers you entered — see the affiliate disclosure below for how commercial links are kept out of the maths entirely.

See how this fits your wider finances →Financial Resilience Planner — model your full income, spending and debts together Funding it with a side hustle? →Side Hustle True Earnings Calculator — what that income really works out at

How the calculations work

Total ownership cost. Purchase price + one-off setup costs + running/maintenance costs over the whole ownership period + any finance cost, minus the resale value you expect at the end. Cost per year divides that by the ownership period; cost per use divides the same total by the total number of uses over the whole period (uses/year × years), not just the first year.

Usage sensitivity. "Half usage" and "low usage" re-run the entire calculation at 50% and 25% of your expected usage — only the number of uses changes, so you can see how much cost/use is being carried by how often you actually use the thing. The early-stop scenario re-runs the calculation as if ownership ended after the number of years you choose, optionally with a different resale value at that point.

Financing. 0% finance simply spreads the financed amount evenly across the term with no interest. Interest-bearing finance uses a standard amortising-loan formula on the APR and term you enter. The "total finance cost" is interest plus fees only — it deliberately excludes the principal itself, since that's already counted once in the purchase price.

Opportunity cost. Compounds your chosen annual return, once per year, over your chosen time horizon, applied to the upfront amount. It's an assumption you control, not a market forecast, and it's shown as a separate figure rather than being added into the ownership cost — money exists to be spent as well as invested, and this tool doesn't take a position on which is right for you.

Affordability context. Purely descriptive: months of disposable income the price represents, the percentage of the savings figure you chose to include, and (if you fill in net income and working hours) roughly how many hours worked the price represents. None of this ever becomes a "can/can't afford" statement — affordability and value are different questions, and this tool only ever answers the affordability one with context, never a verdict.

Alternatives. Every alternative you add runs through exactly the same total-ownership-cost calculation as the main product — same formula, same rounding. They're listed in the order you add them; nothing about ordering, styling or presentation is affected by whether a retailer link is available for any of them.

Retailer links. The calculator (this section) and the retailer/affiliate area further down are built as two separate, independent parts of this tool. The calculator has no access to any commission rate and cannot know which retailer, if any, is currently configured — see the affiliate disclosure page for the full detail on how that separation is enforced and what data (if any) is recorded when you click through.

Release notes and version history

v1.0

Initial release

Total ownership cost, cost/year, cost/use, usage sensitivity and break-even, financing (cash / 0% / interest-bearing), optional opportunity cost, optional affordability context, and a multi-alternative comparison engine. Amazon UK is the only retailer configured so far, via a central affiliate provider registry designed so more retailers can be added without touching the calculator itself. Live price comparison, a curated product catalogue and additional affiliate providers are planned for later versions — see the maintainer README for the full roadmap.