Can your cash cover the move?

Available savings

Cash available before the moving costs and deposit entered here. Do not include uncertain refunds or inaccessible accounts.

One-off moving costs

Travel, non-refundable fees, setup and other spending that does not recur each month.

Refundable deposits

Cash paid away and unavailable while held. Keep it separate from spending and do not assume it returns before your next bill.

Protected reserve

The amount you choose not to use for routine payments. This calculator does not prescribe a suitable reserve.

Monthly cost and income

Comparable ongoing amounts. Income-stop runway assumes zero income; deficit runway assumes the entered income continues unchanged.

The monthly worksheet carries its base total, income and currency only. It does not invent savings or deposits. The higher-cost percentage scenario is not carried.

• Cash after the move = savings − one-off costs − tied-up deposits.
• Spendable buffer = cash after the move − protected reserve.
• Monthly surplus or deficit = take-home income − monthly expenses.
• Income-stop runway = max(0, spendable buffer) ÷ monthly expenses.
• Deficit runway = max(0, spendable buffer) ÷ (expenses − income), only when expenses exceed income.

When expenses are zero, there is no finite expense-based runway to calculate. When income covers monthly costs, there is no recurring deficit in this scenario. Neither result establishes that every dated payment can be funded.

Fictional amounts in one currency: savings 12,000, moving costs 2,000, deposit 1,500 and protected reserve 3,000. Cash after the move is 12,000 − 2,000 − 1,500 = 8,500. The spendable buffer is 8,500 − 3,000 = 5,500.

At monthly costs of 1,800, that buffer lasts 5,500 ÷ 1,800 = 3.06 months with no income. At income 1,400, the ongoing deficit is 400 and deficit runway is 13.75 months. These are constant-rate arithmetic estimates.

If the 1,500 deposit were incorrectly treated as spendable, the buffer would look like 7,000 and the income-stop estimate would look like 3.89 months. That extra apparent runway is not available until a refund is actually received.

Use the carry button to continue to the dated cash-flow planner. It carries the full starting savings before payments, with moving costs and deposits as separate outflows. You must enter actual dates and actual bill amounts. No recurring payments, payday or deposit refund is invented.

Read the deposit-gap case study to see why a future refund cannot fund an earlier payment. Use the commitment checklist to connect quotes, cancellation conditions and payment triggers.