Moneyvista / Royal London Financial Planner

innovate

Anyone else here using Moneyvista? I have been playing with it for a bit and it strikes me as a potentially useful tool for longer term financial planning, or for just illustrating your financial commitments compared with your assets and income, and for verifying your own conclusions.

I haven't entered every last detail of my affairs - I am still maintaining my own spreadsheets for that because I want to be firmly in control of my data. I consider moneyvista as a sort of independent auditor of my own assessment of where I am and where I am going financially.

It is currently free to use - I don't know how long this will be the case, but might as well use it until they start charging for it, which I reckon they will at some stage.

monevator is running a review of it today, and I pretty much agree with their assessment.

ChesterDog

I just started looking at it today, after the Monevator review.

Bit early for me to comment, but I see I am due to die at 86 (which is strange because I live at 90, as Tommy Cooper might have said). A pretty good age for a smooth fox terrier, but somewhat alarming because we generally only live until about 14, so suddenly I must budget for an extra 72 years of retirement! Either that, or it's back to work at the poo-bag factory (chief tester...).

SnowMan

ChesterDog wrote: »

Bit early for me to comment, but I see I am due to die at 86 (which is strange because I live at 90, as Tommy Cooper might have said). A pretty good age for a smooth fox terrier, but somewhat alarming because we generally only live until about 14, so suddenly I must budget for an extra 72 years of retirement! Either that, or it's back to work at the poo-bag factory (chief tester...).

A snowman's life expectancy isn't that great either

I'm reluctant to upload my own data so prefer to keep and develop my own spreadsheet.

Mind you if it had an associated app to download the data into a selftrade questionnaire that could help some though.

ChesterDog

Hmm. I cannot access it now. Just getting "Too many server redirects" messages.

Lomcevak

I've been using it for a while now; i've found it quite useful as an illustrative tool to firm up long-term savings and retirement plans, but (like snowman) i've developed my own spreadsheet - in my case because I don't quite match the moneyvista template - and so i've been using it less frequently.

Can see it being very useful for people approaching long-term savings for the first time

amandajc

I started using it a few months ago when I first began to think seriously about retirement planning and I do find it very helpful (especially since it is free).

As Monevator says it does require a bit of commitment to get the best from it as it only really works to best advantage if you are prepared to spend a fair amount of time inputting all your data (and are happy to do so on an on-line service). Without the full picture it can't properly give you the big picture.

The charts which compare your monthly spend against the UK average are very enlightening. As is the graph that shows your income/outgoings (until you will no longer care any more) and gives you a warning message about when you can expect to move into the red zone.

I would say that it is well worth looking at. I sent a question through about one of the functions which I didn't understand and I got a prompt and useful reply and the email alerts are very timely so it seems to be well-supported and maintained.

It does seem to be out of action at the moment though - ChesterDog have you broken it?

ChesterDog

I think so. I do tend to break things.

The trouble is, I like to test things by chewing them.

Lomcevak

ChesterDog wrote: »

Hmm. I cannot access it now. Just getting "Too many server redirects" messages.

Back now, but seems to have been rebranded as the Royal London Financial Planner at

https://planner.royallondon.com/Login/

Just logged in, and remembered one annoyance. If you're a rate tart (as many of us are) then savings are a pain to keep up to date as you switch and move around, e.g. if you move an ISA you have to delete and recreate and it's a fairly cumbersome process. You can't just change from a NS&I direct ISA to a Santander 123 ISA, for example. You could create an aggregate generic savings account for all your savings, but the interest rates for the model are wrong and you lose the (potentially useful) alerts when fixed-rate or bonus periods come to an end.

So I think my conclusion is the same, very useful for the initial exploratory work but as an ongoing tool it becomes a bit too painful to keep up to date - if you have basic Excel/OpenOffice skills then a spreadsheet is far easier to customise to your needs and keep up to date

innovate

Wonder whether the rebranding is the first step to imminent charging. If so, I shall be out.

masonic

I've been playing with it for the past hour or so. Pleasingly, it's in pretty good agreement with my own spreadsheet. It's nice to have the graphs, which I could never be bothered to do, but I certainly wouldn't pay for it if that's the road they're going down.

G_M

When it launched, they were paying £50 to people who signed up. Then it was £30. Then £10.

Took my £50 but never used it.