How the scoring system works

Your Financial Fitness score is based on the information you have provided here. We don't check with any third party sources to verify the information you provide. It is a guide only and is not financial advice.

The overall score, which is out of 100, considers spending, borrowing and saving.

Your spending

1. Essential spending as a proportion of your income

This estimates how much of your monthly income is spent on essential costs, such as rent or mortgage, transport, food, utility bills and childcare. This is an important indicator as it can help you see how much you may have leftover to spend or save every month, as well as how much you could have available to deal with an unexpected expense.

2. Unspent or saved money as a proportion of your income

This shows how much of your income you may have left at the end of the month. This could be money you put into savings during the month, or it could be used to pay off debts faster (as long as you’re not charged for doing so).

3. Whether you pay your bills on time

Missing payments, or making late payments, can indicate that you’re struggling to make ends meet. It also means you may be incurring late payment charges, increasing the overall costs and any debts.

Your debts

4. The size of your debts (excluding mortgages) in proportion to your yearly income

Borrowing money can be a useful way to purchase things you need. However, it’s important to maintain a sustainable level of borrowing.

Debts can include:

credit cards
personal loans
overdraft balances
car finance
payday loans

The total amount of your borrowing isn’t the only important factor to consider, as the combined amount of your monthly payments is also important. In our framework, we include these payments within your essential spending, so reducing your borrowing can have a positive impact on both the ‘Borrowing’ and ‘Spending’ categories.

The smaller the proportion of money needed to pay debts, the more ability you’ll have to save and further improve your financial fitness.

Your savings

5. Safety net

Your safety net is money you can easily access to cover unexpected one-off costs like car repairs, a new boiler or having to replace a fridge. What’s right for you will depend on your personal circumstances, but for the average individual an amount above £500 would be classified as good and anything above £1,500 could be considered very good.

6. Your Emergency Fund

An emergency fund is there to cover your essential spending for up to 6 months in the event of something like job loss, or serious illness. Our framework takes your essential spending total and multiplies it by 6. This number is then compared to the total amount you hold in savings. Any amount you can put aside is helpful - you could aim for 3 months' of essential spend to get you started. The closer you can get to 6 months’ worth of essential spending, the easier it will be to weather any future financial storms.

The information you provided into the Financial Fitness questionnaire enables us to highlight the areas that we think might be most relevant to helping you build your financial fitness.