Decision guides

Answer a few questions. Get an actual recommendation.

Most financial questions do not need four articles — they need one answer that fits your situation. Each guide below asks three or four questions, then names a recommendation, the order to do things in, where that answer is weakest, and the guides that justify it. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere.

How these workEvery guide runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are held in the page address, which means you can bookmark an outcome or send it to someone, and it also means we never see them. There is no account, no email gate, and no saved profile.

How to read a recommendation

What these guides will and will not do

A branching questionnaire is a way of applying general rules quickly. It is not a substitute for someone who knows your full circumstances, and we would rather say so up front than imply more precision than three questions can deliver.

  • They apply general rules, well. The branches encode the decision logic our guides argue for, so you reach the same conclusion faster than reading four articles.
  • They cannot see what you did not tell them. Three questions cannot capture a divorce in progress, a health change, or a family obligation that dominates everything else.
  • They are jurisdiction-general. Tax treatment, forgiveness programmes and consumer protections vary by country and sometimes by region. We name the mechanism, not your local rule.
  • Every outcome names its own weakness. If a recommendation is wrong for a recognisable group of people, the result says so — that block is not optional and does not collapse.

Outcomes are linkable

The address bar updates as you answer, so any outcome can be bookmarked or shared. Send someone the result instead of trying to summarise it.

Nothing is collected

There is no server involved. Your answers exist in your address bar and your browser's memory, and vanish when you close the tab.

Where the logic came from

Each branch reflects the reasoning in a published guide, including its critical review. Follow the reading list on any outcome to see the argument in full.

The Myth Audit