Can you run this?
A housing and money simulation

Should You Buy or Rent?

You take home $8,000 a month and you’ve saved for years. There’s a home on your street that you can buy or rent. Make the call, then live with it through rate changes, repairs, a baby and a job offer in another city. A twin household with the same income and the same luck makes the opposite choice, so at the end you’ll see the road not taken.

  • 4 yearsone decision page each
  • +6 yearsoptional, to year 10
  • 2 householdsyou, and the twin who chose the other way

About this simulation

Difficulty
Beginner Low risk. A few clear levers; mistakes cost money but rarely end the run.
Length
4 years + 6 more, about 10 minutes for the first part
Category
Personal money
You decide
Housing, mortgage, investment opportunity

How it plays

  1. Year 1 · The big decision — Buy or rent?
  2. Year 2 · Settling in — Your second year
  3. Year 3 · A bigger family — Making room
  4. Year 4 · A job in another city — Stay or go?

After the debrief, “Keep going — to year 10” continues the run with calendar events, new challenges and opportunities that build on what you chose earlier. Every decision page has a live preview that shows what your picks do to the numbers before you lock them in.

What you get at the end

A debrief with your outcome, charts of where the money went, your biggest mistake and roughly what it cost, and a full report you can copy or save as a PDF. Everything runs in your browser: no sign-up, nothing to install.

See all simulations →