A wedding, trip, tuition, or medical bill?
A large one-off purchase is two questions wearing one coat. Can the plan cover it in the month it falls due — and what does the rest of the plan look like afterwards, once the reserve is thinner and the money that paid for it is no longer doing anything else?
What decides whether it fits
- The total amount and the month it falls due, including any deposit paid earlier.
- Which pot it comes from — the reserve, investments, a loan, or a mix of them.
- The accessible money left the month afterwards, and how long rebuilding it takes.
- Whether the plan could absorb a second unexpected cost during that window.
- Alternatives such as spreading the payment, financing it, or moving it later.
Which pot pays for it
Add only the expense to a copy of the baseline and read the months after it, not the month itself. The dip is easy to see; the length of the recovery is the part that decides whether it fits. If the reserve takes two years to return, the plan is exposed for those two years.
To compare funding sources, keep the amount and the month fixed and change only where the money comes from: savings, a sale of investments, a loan, or a split. Each leaves a different reserve and a different long-run balance, and the cheapest one on paper is not always the one you would sleep through.
Questions worth testing
- How low does accessible money go in the month after it is paid?
- How many months does the reserve need to get back to where it was?
- Could the plan handle a second large cost before the reserve recovers?
- What does the same purchase look like six months later instead?
How to read the result
This comparison looks only at whether your cashflow can cover the purchase. Worthifi cannot decide whether the purchase is worthwhile, and the opportunity cost shown depends on assumed returns. Costs you do not enter are omitted, and a large one-off purchase may also create ongoing expenses. This is a planning illustration, not financial advice.
How it works in the app
A one-off expense models any large, one-time cost — funded from savings, investments, a loan, or a mix. See the dent it makes, and how quickly the plan recovers.
- Tap “Plan a big one-off expense”.
- Enter the amount, the month, and how it's funded.
- Check the dip in your assets and the recovery afterwards.
Model this yourself