Financial planning for families
Make the big financial decisions before you make them.
Buying a home, changing jobs, paying down debt — build the decision as a scenario and see what it does to your cash, your debt, your investments and your other goals, in a plan that keeps up as your real accounts change.
- Current plan$612K
- Buy the house$524K
- Stay and invest$648K
One decision, several outcomes
The monthly payment is the easy part.
A mortgage calculator tells you what the house costs each month. It can't tell you what else moves when you buy it.
| Compared across | Current planEverything continues as it is today. | Buy the houseClose next spring, 20% down. | Stay and investKeep the current house, invest the down payment. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Projected net worth after 5 years | $612K | $524K | $648K |
| Cash after 5 years | $71K | $22K | $38K |
| Debt remaining after 5 years | $0 | $412K | $0 |
| Debt-free month | Mar 2029 | Not within 5 years | Mar 2029 |
| Months projected below your cash buffer | 0 | 4 | 0 |
Counts the months where projected cash falls below zero, or below the cash buffer you set. Illustrative figures. Your comparison is built from your own accounts and the assumptions you enter.
Buying costs more than the payment. In this example it moves the debt-free month past the five-year window, puts four months below the family's cash buffer, and ends about $88,000 behind carrying on as they are.
Investing the down payment instead ends highest on paper — and it also means staying in the current house for another five years. FamilyCFO won't tell you which of those a family should want. It shows you what each one costs, so you can make that trade deliberately.
Every figure here depends on the assumptions behind it. Change the closing date, the rate or your savings, and the whole comparison changes with it.
Decisions
The questions worth modelling.
Not what you spent last month — what happens if you do the thing you're weighing right now.
See the down payment, the new mortgage and the end of your rent land together — and what they leave behind for savings, debt and the goals you already had.
Model the old paycheck ending and the new one starting, with severance and health premiums in between, and see how far your cash actually carries you.
Build both and put them side by side. Compare the debt-free month, cash, investments and projected net worth instead of picking a rule of thumb.
A plan that stays current
Your plan should change when your life does.
A scenario isn't a snapshot you fill in once. It stays attached to your real accounts, so it keeps using your actual balances and the rest of your plan — only the parts you deliberately changed are yours to maintain.
For example
You get a raise. You update your income once, on your plan, and every scenario that didn't set its own income figure picks it up — so the house comparison you built in January still reflects what you actually earn. Where the new number collides with something you set on purpose, FamilyCFO flags it and asks instead of overwriting it.
Connected accounts, new transactions and your balances update on their own. The things that haven't happened yet — a raise you're expecting, a job you're weighing, a house you haven't bought — are yours to tell it about.
See how a plan stays currentGetting started
Start with today, then look forward.
FamilyCFO keeps the books too — accounts, transactions, bills, budgets, goals, debts and investments — because a projection is only as good as the picture underneath it.
- Step 1
Add your accounts
Connect a bank, import a CSV, or enter them by hand.
- Step 2
Confirm what's recurring
FamilyCFO reads your history and suggests your regular income and spending. You approve what's right and fix what isn't.
- Step 3
Build a scenario
Change what you're considering, then compare it with your current plan.