News

What's New

Every update to Quidsmith, newest first. The game began life as the UK Personal Finance Simulator and was rebuilt and renamed Quidsmith in 2026; the full history is below.

v1.14 2026-07-30

• Means-tested care is now charged only while you are actually receiving residential care, instead of every year from 80 whatever your health. It is also broken out as its own line on the annual statement and the end-of-run summary, so you can see what is care and what is the self-funding charge.
• Long-term care cover now does what it says. The "cover my costs" drawdown no longer withdraws a second copy of a care bill your policy is already paying, which was quietly draining insured players' pensions in tax.
• Bought partial cover and wish you had taken full? You can now top it up to full cover any time before 76, paying only for the extra slice at your age on the day.
• "Cover my costs" now covers them. Care is priced at the same level you were shown when you planned the year, the self-funding charge is worked out from a settled figure, and the withdrawal you are quoted is the withdrawal you get.
• You can no longer pay more into a SIPP than you earn in a year. Tax relief is limited to your earnings, as it is in real life, so a pension can no longer be topped up from savings to wipe out an income tax bill.
• New: set target weights for your S&S ISA and have it rebalanced automatically every year, inside the wrapper, with no capital gains tax and no allowance used.

v1.13 2026-07-29

• You no longer get divorced or made redundant on a loop. Those are once-in-a-lifetime events now, and the pool of unexpected events has grown with new health, family, motoring and other shocks, so the years feel less repetitive.
• Annual committed expenses can be opened up into a full breakdown. Housing, home upkeep, car, everyday living, wellbeing, protection premiums, debt and late-life care each get their own line, and the total now includes everything that actually leaves your account.
• Retired with a big pot but only drawing a little? The Overview now shows what you are drawing and points out how much more the 4% rule would pay, with a one-tap jump to change your strategy.
• Each rental now shows its net income for a typical year, so paying down a buy-to-let mortgage visibly lifts what it earns you.
• The Wellbeing tab spells out how much your lifelong habits are shaping your final Life Score, so the stakes are clear while you can still act on them.
• Protection is clearer: it covers one-off shocks, not routine running costs, and when a policy pays out the event screen now shows the reimbursement.
• In Sandbox and challenge rooms you can finally type any starting or retirement age instead of the box snapping back.
• The Reset plan and Contribution schedule cards can be collapsed, and the game remembers your choice.
• Old saves carry over (save format 2.22).

v1.12 2026-07-26

• Selling up in later life no longer drops you into a bargain starter-flat rent. Rent now tracks the home you sold, so cashing in a large house means a large house's rent too.
• Your buy-to-lets now show up in the Portfolio sidebar with their own line, so rental equity is no longer hidden inside the net-worth total.
• Your home's current monthly mortgage payment is shown on the Property tab, and the overpayment box explains that overpaying lowers your future monthly payments rather than shortening the term.
• The allocation Overview now shows your annual surplus (net salary minus committed expenses), so you can see at a glance how much there is to save each year.
• Fixed a burglary claim: a break-in is now covered by your buildings and contents policy as advertised, instead of being billed to you in full.

v1.11 2026-07-19

• Retiring no longer leaves you living on thin air. Your private pension now starts paying automatically the year your salary stops, at whatever it takes to cover your outgoings, and it is recalculated every year so rising prices cannot quietly erode it.
• You can pick how you draw instead: the 4% rule, the most you can take entirely tax-free, or a fixed amount of your own. Each option shows what it would pay you this year before you choose.
• The Pension tab now has a full retirement cash-flow readout, so you can see your income, your outgoings and the tax on top in one place, and whether the year actually adds up.
• The status bar shows what you are drawing, and the Pension tab flags itself if you are retired with an untouched pot.
• Old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.21).

v1.10 2026-07-19

• A running side hustle now shows its whole story, not just last year. The Career tab tracks what it has earned and what it has cost you since the day you started (start-up money included), so you can see at a glance whether it has actually paid for itself.
• The risks are on the table too: the yearly running cost, the drag on your main-job pay rises, and roughly how likely it is to fold this year. New ventures are shakier than established ones, and now say so.
• When a hustle folds, the annual statement tells you how long it ran and what it cost you all in. Breakout years are called out rather than passing as ordinary luck, and the running cost has its own line.
• Old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.20).

v1.9 2026-07-15

• You can now shape your own income, not just ride the market. On the Overview tab, spend on education to permanently lift your salary (diminishing returns, capped), and start a side hustle for a variable second income.
• A side hustle costs money to start and run, takes a little focus (a small drag on your main-job pay rises), and can fold or, occasionally, take off. Choose steady freelancing or a higher-variance online business. Its profit could instead have been the start-up cash invested, so it is a genuine trade-off.
• Old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.18).

v1.8 2026-07-15

• You can now move home. Upsize or downsize between a flat, a house and a detached home: your current place is sold, its equity rolls into the new one, and you pay stamp duty and moving costs on top.
• Owning a home is no longer cost-free. Every owned home has an annual upkeep cost of about 1.2% of its value, so a bigger, pricier home also costs more to run.
• Old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.17).

v1.7 2026-07-15

• Your car is now a thing you own, not just a number. Each option (budget, mid-range, premium) has its own running cost, depreciation and reliability, so the cheapest car is no longer a free ride.
• Owned cars cost money to run each year, lose value over time, and can break down for a repair bill or, occasionally, be written off, in which case the car is gone and you fall back to a lease until you buy again. Cheaper cars break down more; leasing avoids all of it at a higher steady price.
• Old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.16).

v1.6 2026-07-15

• Share investing is simpler and less of a lottery: picking individual companies is replaced by five theme baskets (Technology & Communications, Energy & Resources, Financials & Property, Healthcare & Defence, Consumer & Transport), sitting alongside the Global ETF in your ISA and GIA.
• A basket spreads your money across a whole sector, so when one company fails the loss is diluted across the rest and a new listing takes its place, instead of a single holding being written off to nothing.
• Due diligence now shows what each basket holds and its bull and bear case, so you can back a theme without researching individual firms.
• Old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.15).

v1.5 2026-07-15

• Your net worth is now shown in today's money alongside the headline figure, so a fortune inflated over decades reads honestly. The end screen spells out how much prices rose across your life.
• New Cash Flow summary on the annual statement: money in versus money out at a glance, and a clear read on whether you are saving or drawing down, which matters most in retirement.
• Salaries now rise at a steadier, more realistic pace instead of ballooning in high-inflation years.
• Contributions can be set to repeat every year or apply just once, so a lump sum is no longer mistaken for an annual commitment when you fast-forward several years.
• Inflation now settles back down after a shock rather than sitting high for years, and shocks no longer cluster back to back. The annual statement shows how long a shock has left to run.
• Difficulty rebalanced: Standard, Hard and Ironman are tougher, with means-tested late-life care that makes a large estate a real liability. A big fortune can now shrink in your final years, so the plan matters right to the end.
• The Lifetime ISA now warns you when a house is over the £450,000 limit, so you are not caught out at withdrawal.
• The end-of-run gambling summary now spells out what the lottery and casino cost you over a lifetime, and crypto swings feel less like a coin flip.
• Old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.14).

v1.4 2026-07-04

• New Lifetime ISA: invest toward a first home or age 60 with a 25% government bonus on up to £4,000 a year. It shares the £20,000 ISA allowance, and a non-qualifying withdrawal takes a 25% charge.
• New Protection tab: income protection, buildings and contents, and health cover. Each charges a yearly premium and reimburses a matching unexpected event before it can force a sale.
• New equity release: from age 55, borrow against an outright home with no monthly repayments. The balance rolls up at a fixed rate and is settled when the home is sold, so it trades future estate for cash now.
• Four new achievements, and old saves are retired for a clean cutoff (save format 2.13).

v1.3 2026-06-26

• New interactive tutorial: a guided first run that walks you through the whole loop, from clearing debt and building a buffer to your pension, ISAs, general investing, and reacting to life events.
• Start it from the main menu (New here? Take the tutorial). It runs on a gentle, fixed scenario so every step lines up, and you can skip or replay it any time.

v1.2 2026-06-18

• Lottery expanded into a Quids Millions draw: £2.50 a line, pick 5 numbers from 50 plus 2 Stars from 12.
• Thirteen prize tiers now pay out, not just the jackpot, with realistic odds and a varying £14m–£208m jackpot.
• Annual statement breaks down every lottery tier won that year (still tax-free).

v1.1 2026-06-11

• Added investment withdrawals across every wrapper: Cash ISA, Easy Access, Premium Bonds, S&S ISA (ETF + stocks) and GIA (ETF + stocks).
• Individual stock allocation in S&S ISA and GIA now uses percentage-based inputs.
• Lock buttons on all deposit fields: confirm allocations and track available balance live.
• Forced liquidation reworked: any shortfall that pushes the current account negative opens the liquidation screen, where you sell investments to cover it or auto-liquidate in priority order. Time-locked savings forfeit interest plus a 2% penalty; gilts sell at market value; pensions stay inaccessible before 57.

v1.0 2026-06-04

• Rebranded from UK Personal Finance Simulator to Quidsmith. Same simulation, new name and look.
• Existing saves carry over automatically; the old name now appears only here in the history below.
• New About, Guide, Support and News pages bring everything under the Quidsmith banner.

v0.52 2026-05-19

• Final polish pass before the rebrand: tidied allocation locks and the liquidation priority order.
• Fixed an edge case where a fully locked allocation could leave a stray penny unassigned.

v0.51 2026-04-07

• Tax year 2026/27. Income tax bands and the Personal Allowance stay frozen at £12,570 / £50,270 / £125,140; the ISA allowance remains £20,000.
• Added a reminder that the minimum private pension access age rises from 55 to 57 in April 2028.

v0.50 2026-03-10

• Spring Statement tracked: no changes to income tax bands, the ISA allowance, or CGT and dividend allowances.
• Premium Bonds prize-fund rate refreshed to match the latest NS&I figure.

v0.49 2026-02-12

• Casino tuned: slot machine pays back about 94.9% over time, European roulette carries the standard 2.70% house edge.
• Added a gambling summary so you can see lifetime stakes and returns at a glance.

v0.48 2026-01-15

• New casino reachable from the allocation screen: a slot machine and European roulette, settled immediately in cash.
• Winnings and losses flow straight through the current account, with two new lifetime stats.

v0.47 2025-12-09

• Year-end performance pass: faster year simulation on long runs.
• Cleaned up the save format and migration; old saves continue to load.

v0.46 2025-11-26

• Autumn Budget tracked: income tax and National Insurance thresholds confirmed frozen for a further period.
• State Pension triple lock applied to the projection.

v0.45 2025-10-14

• Balance pass driven by a simulation harness: difficulty curves retuned so invested players are challenged without being punished.
• Fixed a liquidation bug that could wrongly trigger game over at exactly £0.

v0.44 2025-09-08

• Premium Bonds prize tiers and odds refreshed to match NS&I, with a per-year breakdown on the annual statement.

v0.43 2025-08-12

• Accessibility pass: keyboard navigation through the allocation screen and screen-reader labels on key controls.

v0.42 2025-07-15

• Mobile and tablet layout pass so allocation and statement screens work on smaller screens.

v0.41 2025-05-13

• Annual statement redesigned to group income, costs, tax and investment growth.
• Fixed dividend tax being incorrectly applied inside ISAs (ISA holdings are tax-free).

v0.40 2025-04-08

• Tax year 2025/26. Personal Allowance and higher-rate threshold remain frozen at £12,570 and £50,270, additional rate from £125,140.
• ISA allowance held at £20,000; CGT annual exempt amount £3,000; dividend allowance £500.

v0.39 2025-03-11

• Added optional ads with a first-party PECR/GDPR cookie consent banner; everything stays off until you opt in.

v0.38 2025-02-10

• Sandbox gained an Advanced section: the full difficulty configuration is now editable.
• Fixed dead salary and living-cost sandbox fields that previously had no effect.

v0.37 2025-01-14

• New manage-by-exception advance: fast-forward your own plan year by year until something noteworthy happens, with automatic stops on a shortfall.

v0.36 2024-12-10

• Overview gained an interactive stacked portfolio chart across nine asset categories, with hover and click point details.
• Various bug fixes to net-worth aggregation.

v0.35 2024-11-12

• Added life-event dilemmas: sixteen choice cards (startup equity, lending to family, career moves) with deferred payoffs that resolve years later.

v0.34 2024-10-15

• Care counterplay: a long-term care-cover product plus wellbeing-driven residential-care risk, with a care-risk telegraph so you can plan ahead.

v0.33 2024-09-10

• Annuities: from age 50 you can buy a lifelong guaranteed income, priced from your wellbeing and predicted CPI (lower wellbeing buys a better rate).

v0.32 2024-08-13

• Win screen now shows a Life Score combining wealth against par with wellbeing, as a geometric mean.

v0.31 2024-07-09

• Added a wellbeing system: diet, exercise and community standing habits, funded as a cost-neutral carve-out of living costs.

v0.30 2024-06-11

• Crypto collapse risk added, with a difficulty multiplier.
• Fixed a rounding error in gold allocations.

v0.29 2024-05-14

• New Exotics tab: physical gold (held in an ISA or GIA) and crypto (GIA only), plus four new achievements.

v0.28 2024-04-09

• Tax year 2024/25. Dividend allowance cut to £500 and the CGT annual exempt amount cut to £3,000.
• Pension Lifetime Allowance abolished and replaced by lump sum allowances.
• ISA rules relaxed in line with the reforms: more than one ISA of the same type can be paid into in a year.

v0.27 2024-03-12

• Spring Budget tracked: the higher CGT rate on residential property cut from 28% to 24%, reflected when you sell a second home.

v0.26 2024-02-13

• Stock market expanded to 27 fictional companies, with crash mechanics.

v0.25 2024-01-16

• Added company due diligence: a bull and bear case for every stock, reachable from the S&S ISA and GIA pickers, plus two new low-volatility companies.

v0.24 2023-12-12

• Performance pass for a faster year simulation on long playthroughs.

v0.23 2023-11-14

• Added the tiered ending screen, from Survived through to Legacy.
• Fixed game over not triggering when the current account hit £0.

v0.22 2023-10-10

• Unexpected events pool expanded to more than 25 events.

v0.21 2023-09-12

• Premium Bonds prize-fund rate updated to reflect NS&I raising it to 4.65%, with a per-year prize record.

v0.20 2023-08-15

• Added sandbox mode: set your own starting position and economy.

v0.19 2023-07-11

• Added an achievements system.

v0.18 2023-06-13

• Sell house (reverts to renting) and sell car (shows current vehicle value).
• Corrected the stamp duty calculation on property purchases.

v0.17 2023-05-09

• Added offset mortgages and a full property purchase flow: buy outright or with a mortgage, set the deposit, and preview the monthly payment before committing.

v0.16 2023-04-11

• Tax year 2023/24. The 1.25-point dividend tax rise was reversed (back to 8.75 / 33.75 / 39.35%).
• Pension annual allowance raised from £40,000 to £60,000 and the Lifetime Allowance charge removed.
• Additional-rate threshold now £125,140; dividend allowance £1,000; CGT annual exempt amount £6,000.

v0.15 2023-03-14

• Added JSON export and import of saves.
• Fixed a save migration that dropped pension pots.

v0.14 2023-02-14

• Added the first unexpected events pool (15 events).
• Auto-save to local storage.

v0.13 2023-01-17

• Added a SIPP alongside the workplace pension, plus a State Pension projection.

v0.12 2022-12-13

• Mortgage mechanics: fixed, tracker and SVR, with loan-to-value tracking.
• Fixed negative equity not displaying correctly.

v0.11 2022-11-22

• Autumn Statement tracked: additional-rate threshold to fall to £125,140 from April 2023, the dividend allowance to drop to £1,000 then £500, and the CGT annual exempt amount to fall to £6,000 then £3,000. Telegraphed in-game.

v0.10 2022-10-11

• Added a workplace pension with employer matching and tax relief. Pension annual allowance £40,000.

v0.9 2022-09-13

• Added Time-Locked savings and gilts. Accessing time-locked savings early forfeits the interest.

v0.8 2022-08-09

• Added individual company shares (12 companies) inside the S&S ISA and GIA, with an annual bankruptcy risk.

v0.7 2022-07-12

• Added a General Investment Account with dividend and capital gains tax. CGT annual exempt amount £12,300; dividend allowance £2,000.

v0.6 2022-06-14

• Added Premium Bonds (£50,000 maximum holding, tax-free prizes).
• Fixed a rounding error in monthly mortgage interest.

v0.5 2022-05-10

• Added a Stocks & Shares ISA with a Global ETF. The £20,000 ISA allowance is shared across Cash and S&S ISAs.

v0.4 2022-04-12

• Tax year 2022/23. Dividend tax rates raised by 1.25 points (to 8.75 / 33.75 / 39.35%).
• Added income tax bands (20 / 40 / 45%) with a £12,570 Personal Allowance and a £50,270 higher-rate threshold.

v0.3 2022-03-15

• Added wage growth and annual living costs.
• Spring Statement note: the National Insurance primary threshold rises to £12,570 from July 2022.
• Fixed interest compounding twice in some years.

v0.2 2022-02-15

• Added inflation and the Bank of England base rate to the economy engine; savings interest now tracks the base rate.

v0.1 2022-01-18

• First public build of the UK Personal Finance Simulator.
• Core year-by-year loop with a current account, a basic Cash ISA and Easy Access savings. ISA allowance £20,000; Personal Allowance £12,570.