Guide

How to play Quidsmith

Quidsmith Guides · Updated 2026-07-03 · 9 min read

Quidsmith is a UK personal-finance life simulation. You steer one person from age 25 to 100, making the money decisions a lifetime throws at you. This is the full guide to how it works.

The goal

Survive from age 25 to age 100 without your current account ever reaching £0. Reach 100 and your final net worth sets your ending tier. Along the way a second axis, wellbeing, shapes your health and your final Life Score.

Each year

1. Review your snapshot: income, expenses and economy conditions.
2. Allocate money across investment products using the tabs.
3. Click Advance Year to simulate.
4. Review the Annual Statement: what happened and how your net worth changed.
5. Occasionally an unexpected event fires, a cost taken straight from your current account.

The products at a glance

Two workhorses do most of the heavy lifting: a Global ETF for growth and gilts for ballast. The case for holding them together is in why a gilt and Global ETF mix works so well.

Available balance

The header shows Available: your current account minus all planned deposits, plus planned withdrawals. If it goes red you have over-allocated. You can still advance, but your account may go negative.

Your home and mortgages

You start out renting. When you can afford the deposit you can buy a home, paying cash or taking a mortgage (fixed, tracker, SVR or offset). Stamp duty applies on purchase. A mortgage spreads the cost but adds interest; you can make overpayments to clear it faster, watching for any early-repayment charge. Owning removes rent from your living costs and the property tracks house prices each year. See rent vs buy and should you overpay your mortgage.

Buy-to-let

From the property flow you can buy a rental property: a one-bed flat, a terraced house, or a higher-yield HMO. Buy with cash or a buy-to-let mortgage (interest-only by default, minimum 50% deposit). Rent is taxed as income with a basic-rate Section 24 credit, purchases carry an SDLT surcharge, and a sale is liable to CGT. Watch for voids and maintenance, which eat into yield. Full detail in is leveraged property worth it.

Pensions and retirement

Your salary stops at age 60. While working, auto-enrolment puts 5% of gross into your workplace pension and your employer adds 3% free; you can top up via a SIPP (combined £60,000/yr allowance, tax relief at your marginal rate). Pensions grow tax-free but are locked until 57. From 57 you draw down: 25% tax-free, the rest taxed as income. The State Pension (~£11,500/yr, inflation-linked) starts at 68. See pensions explained and making your money last from 60 to 100.

Annuities

From age 50 you can spend a lump sum on an annuity: a guaranteed income for the rest of your life. The rate is set from your wellbeing and predicted inflation, so lower wellbeing buys a better rate. It is a one-off purchase and sits outside your net worth.

Wellbeing and Life Score

Three standing habits, diet, exercise and community, are funded as a cost-neutral carve-out of your living costs, so spending on them is a choice about where the same money goes. Their lifelong average feeds a subtle health effect and your final Life Score, which blends wealth against par with wellbeing as a geometric mean. Money alone does not max it out.

Life-event choices

Now and then a choice card appears: backing a startup for equity, lending to family, a career move, and the like. These are separate from unexpected events, and many have deferred payoffs that only resolve years later, for better or worse.

Unexpected events

Every 2 to 5 years a random expense fires, costing roughly £1,000 for every year played. If your current account cannot cover it, a liquidation screen appears where you sell investments to cover the shortfall. Time-locked savings accessed early forfeit their interest and carry a 2% penalty; pensions are inaccessible before 57. This is why an emergency fund matters.

Exotics: gold and crypto

Gold is a crisis hedge: low long-run return, but it tends to rise when the market crashes and when inflation is high. Crypto is the high-stakes corner: wildly volatile, GIA only, with a small annual chance of a ~90% collapse. Keep both small. See the exotics, reviewed.

Gambling: lottery and casino

Quids Millions costs £2.50 a line and pays thirteen tax-free prize tiers. A casino offers a slot machine (~94.9% return) and European roulette (2.70% house edge). Both are a long-run drain by design, explained in the house always wins.

Late-life care

From age 80 an unavoidable care cost (£12,000/yr in today's money) is added on top of living expenses, rising at roughly CPI + 2%. From 85 there is a growing yearly chance of needing residential care (£35,000+/yr). You can plan ahead with a care-cover policy bought between 50 and 75. See planning for late-life care.

Winning

Reach age 100 to win. Your final net worth determines your tier:

• Survived: net worth above £0 but under £100k
• Comfortable: £100k to £999k
• Wealthy: £1m to £4.99m
• Legacy: £5m and above