How to build your first What-If Scenario

How to build your first What-If Scenario 🔮

Your Active Plan budget tracks your day-to-day vanlife costs, but what about the big, life-changing curveballs?

Will taking a 3-month seasonal job let you travel for an extra year? Can you afford to replace your engine next spring without draining your bank account?

You can answer these questions by building What-If Events. These events drop future income or expenses directly onto your Runway chart so you can see the exact impact before you spend a single penny.

🛠️ Step 1: Open the Event Manager

Open the Money tab.
In the top right corner, tap the Manage Events icon (it looks like a little list with a rectangle).
Tap the + Add Event button to create your first scenario.

📝 Step 2: Define the Event

Let’s imagine you want to see if you can afford to ship your van to Canada next summer.

Name: Give it a clear name (e.g., “Ship Van to Canada”).
Type: Is this money entering your pocket or leaving it? For shipping, select Expense. (If you were planning a seasonal job, you would select Income).
Amount: Enter the cost (e.g., £2,500).

⏱️ Step 3: Timing and Frequency

This is where the engine gets really smart. You need to tell the app when this event happens.

Frequency: Since you are only shipping the van once, select One-off. (If you were paying a monthly storage fee, you would select Monthly).
Start Date: Pick the exact date you plan to pay for this (e.g., June 15th next year).
End Date (Optional): If this was a recurring event (like a 3-month summer job), you would set an End Date so the app knows when to stop adding the income to your Runway.

📈 Step 4: Advanced Physics (Inflation & Interest)

At the bottom of the editor, you will see two advanced toggles:

Index with Inflation: If you are planning an event 3 years in the future, £2,500 won’t have the same buying power. Toggle this on, and the app will automatically increase the cost of the event based on your global inflation settings!
Index with Interest: (Usually used for Income). If you are receiving a massive payout in the future, the app calculates the compounding interest that money will earn once it hits your bank account.

Tap Save when you are done.

🪄 Step 5: Toggle and Test (The Magic)

Now that your event is saved, close the manager and look at your Runway Horizon Chart on the main Money dashboard.

You will see a sudden “cliff edge” drop on the chart exactly in June of next year, representing your £2,500 shipping fee.

Look at the “Months of Runway” number at the top of the chart. Has it dropped significantly?
The ultimate test: Open the Event Manager again, find your “Ship Van to Canada” event, and turn the Enabled toggle OFF. Close the sheet. Watch the chart instantly recalculate and bounce back up!

By toggling events on and off, you can visually test different futures and make massive financial decisions with total confidence.

Need a faster answer? Try a “Quick What-If”

If you are standing in a surf shop and just want to know if buying a £400 wetsuit is a bad idea, you don’t need to build a full event!

Instead of saving a massive, complex scenario to your database, you can do a “Quick What-If” to test a single purchase on the fly. 👉 Just tap the magic wand icon on the dashboard to use the Quick What-If Tool and see the instant impact on your runway!