About

Real Cost Sim was created to answer a simple question many people struggle with:
“Is my salary actually giving me a good life-or am I treading water?”

News stories about young people leaving the UK in record numbers, rising housing pressure, long commutes, and “brain drain” trends raised the same theme again and again: people don’t have a clear picture of the real cost of staying where they are.

Reporting on the widening cost-of-living gap makes it clear that the traditional payslip no longer tells the full story of working life. Tools like NickSimulator, which went viral for exposing how much of people’s income is consumed by modern life overheads, showed that people are looking for deeper, more transparent numbers, not surface-level salary calculators.

Real Cost Sim builds on that idea.

It combines:

• take-home pay
• rent & housing pressure
• commute time & cost
• childcare & dependents
• life “maintenance”
• psychological drivers (belonging, fatigue, trade-offs)
• “hour of freedom” metrics

…into one simple model that shows what your work truly buys you. It isn’t financial advice; it’s a clarity tool.

The goal is to help people answer questions like:

• Should I move city?
• Is this job actually worth the commute?
• Would a pay rise, relocation, or remote work genuinely improve my life?
• Am I trading all my energy for very little leftover?

The mission is simple: give people transparent numbers so they can make better decisions about where they live, how they work, and what their time is worth.

What Real Cost Sim is not

• It’s not an investment tool
• It’s not a budgeting app
• It’s not personalised financial advice

It’s a lens, a framework, to reveal the hidden forces that shape your working life. If it helps even a few people realise they could live better elsewhere, negotiate differently, or reclaim some time, then it has done its job.