Disclaimer, privacy, and about

Disclaimer

These terms apply to your use of ETQ. They also operate as important information about the tool's limitations. By using ETQ you accept these terms; if you do not accept them, do not use ETQ.

1. Nature of the tool

Enough to Quit ("ETQ") is a deterministic retirement-projection tool made available without charge for educational and informational use only. ETQ produces year-by-year projections of cash and net worth based on the inputs you provide and the assumptions configured in the tool. ETQ presents an "earliest viable retirement age", a plan tested at a retirement age you choose, a "sustainable spending" figure for a household already retired, a projected net worth at retirement, and comparable outputs. All of these are the result of a model, not opinions, predictions, or recommendations: "viable" and "sustainable" mean only that the entered scenario passes the model's own cash-reserve and legacy tests across the projection, and projected future values are nominal unless a surface states otherwise.

ETQ is a general educational tool available worldwide. It does not model the tax, pension, or benefit rules of any country, is not directed at any particular jurisdiction, and is not intended for use where its content would be unlawful.

2. Not financial advice; no personal recommendation

ETQ is not financial, investment, tax, legal, accounting, pension, estate-planning, insurance, or any other form of regulated advice, and nothing in ETQ is a personal recommendation. ETQ is not authorised or regulated as a financial adviser, investment firm, pension adviser, credit intermediary, insurer, or similar regulated provider in any jurisdiction, and no regulator has reviewed or approved this site. Nothing in ETQ constitutes investment advice or a personal recommendation within the meaning of the Maltese Investment Services Act (Cap 370), MiFID II, or equivalent legislation elsewhere. ETQ does not recommend, endorse, or solicit the purchase, sale, or holding of any security, fund, pension product, insurance product, property, or other financial product.

3. No suitability assessment

ETQ does not know you. It has not assessed your knowledge or experience, financial situation, investment objectives, time horizon, risk tolerance, capacity for loss, or wider personal circumstances. ETQ does not perform a suitability or appropriateness assessment.

4. Assumptions, limitations, and model risk

ETQ is a deterministic single-path model. It does not run probability simulations and does not produce confidence intervals or probability-based outcomes. Default assumptions are general averages chosen for broad illustration; small changes can produce materially different results. The default equity-return assumption is a long-run nominal estimate, not a forecast. ETQ does not localise pension rules or tax rules to any jurisdiction. The full list of assumptions and limitations is set out under Assumptions below.

5. Past performance; no forecast

Where ETQ uses long-run averages for investment returns, property appreciation, inflation, or growth rates, those averages are based on generalised market history. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. ETQ does not forecast markets, property prices, inflation, exchange rates, taxation, or government policy.

6. User responsibility

You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the inputs you enter, for the assumptions you select or accept, for the way you interpret the output, and for any decision you take or refrain from taking based on ETQ. Before making any retirement, investment, pension, tax, property, debt, insurance, or estate-planning decision, you should consult a qualified professional regulated in your jurisdiction.

7. No warranty and no liability

ETQ is a free educational tool. Its calculations and outputs are produced automatically by a simplified, deterministic model from the figures you enter and the assumptions shown, and nothing more.

ETQ and every result it produces are provided "as is" and "as available". The operator gives no warranties, representations, or guarantees of any kind, whether express or implied, as to the accuracy, correctness, completeness, reliability, availability, or fitness for any particular purpose of ETQ or of any result obtained from it. The operator does not warrant that ETQ is error-free or up to date, and accepts no responsibility for any inaccuracy, error, incompleteness, or omission in any result, or for anything done or not done in reliance on it.

You use ETQ and rely on its outputs entirely at your own risk, and you are responsible for independently verifying any result before you act on it.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the operator shall have no liability to you of any kind, and will not be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever, whether direct, indirect, incidental, special, or consequential, and whether arising in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, arising out of or in connection with ETQ, its use or unavailability, or any reliance on any result it produces, even where the possibility of that loss or damage was known or foreseeable.

8. Intellectual property

The ETQ model, source code, copy, and design are © Kenneth Bonnici, published as Enough to Quit ("ETQ"). All rights reserved. No licence is granted to copy, modify, or reuse any part of them.

9. Changes; severability

ETQ may update its model, default assumptions, or this page without notice. The version date at the top of this page indicates when this content was last revised.

If any part of these terms is found invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts continue to apply.

10. Governing law and where disputes are heard

These terms are governed by the law of Malta. If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not take away the protection of any rules of the law of the country where you live which apply regardless of what these terms say; for consumers in the EU this follows from Article 6(2) of the Rome I Regulation.

If you are a consumer, you may bring any claim in the courts of the country where you live, and any claim against you may be brought only in those courts. In all other cases, the courts of Malta have non-exclusive jurisdiction.

11. Not a substitute for professional advice

If in doubt, do not act on ETQ. Consult a regulated financial adviser, tax adviser, pension specialist, or solicitor before making a decision that materially affects your financial future.

Assumptions and limitations

This section is the binding summary. For the full working, including the calculation pipeline, how the earliest viable retirement age is tested and how the model is checked, see how the ETQ model works.

What ETQ does

Projects cash and net worth year-by-year for one household to a chosen life expectancy age, under one set of assumptions. Depending on the planning mode you select, reports the earliest age at which the scenario satisfies your cash reserve and legacy constraints (if any), tests the plan at a retirement age you choose, estimates the highest annual living expenses the entered scenario supports for a household already retired, or projects net worth at the statutory retirement age. Lets you compare retirement ages where the selected mode offers a comparison, and lets you schedule planned asset sales, market crashes, and major future income or spending events.

What ETQ does not do

Stress-test outcomes statistically (no Monte Carlo, no probability bands). Model tax in detail. Model regulated pensions in detail. Recommend products or strategies. Replace a qualified professional. Forecast markets, property prices, inflation, exchange rates, taxation, or government policy.

Default assumptions used by the model

• General inflation: per year
• Cash interest rate: per year
• Equity return: per year (long-run nominal estimate)
• Property appreciation: per year
• Salary growth: per year
• Rental income growth: per year
• Stock selling cost: of proceeds
• Property disposal cost: of proceeds
• Other-asset disposal cost: of proceeds
• Default statutory retirement age:
• Default life expectancy:
• Default early-pension reduction: currency units per year of early retirement
• Spending pattern (default taper): vs today's spending up to age , then to age , then . A steady option keeps spending flat.

What is not modelled

ETQ does not model income tax, capital gains tax, social-security or national insurance contributions, withholding tax, dividend tax, jurisdiction-specific pension or tax wrappers (for example UK State Pension, Maltese Two-Thirds Pension, defined-benefit accrual, lifetime or annual allowances, employer matching, salary sacrifice, lump sums, survivor benefits), healthcare and long-term care costs, currency risk on multi-currency portfolios, sequence-of-returns risk on investment returns, regulatory or legislative change, divorce or separation events beyond inputs you supply, and political risk.

You must enter income and pension figures NET of tax. ETQ does not localise pension rules or tax rules to any jurisdiction; numbers are plain currency in, currency out.

Sensitivity

A 1 percentage-point change in equity return or inflation can move the earliest viable retirement age by several years. Always test outcomes against alternative assumptions before relying on a single result.

Risk warnings

Investment risk

The value of investments goes up and down. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. ETQ uses a single average annual rate (default for equities) and does not stress-test against market crashes unless you schedule them. Real portfolios experience volatility that can permanently change retirement outcomes through sequence-of-returns risk.

Tax

ETQ does not model income tax, capital gains tax, social security or national insurance contributions, dividend tax, withholding tax, VAT, property transfer tax, or any jurisdiction-specific allowance or relief. You must enter income and pension figures NET of tax. Tax laws change.

Pension

ETQ models a single statutory-age pension as an annual amount with a flat early-retirement reduction. It does not represent UK State Pension, Maltese Two-Thirds Pension, contributions-based accrual, defined-benefit schemes, defined-contribution drawdown rules, lifetime allowance or annual allowance limits, employer matching, salary sacrifice, lump sums, survivor benefits, or transfer values. Speak to a qualified pension specialist for any decision involving a pension.

Inflation

ETQ uses a single general-inflation rate (default ) applied uniformly to spending and most other figures. Real inflation is uneven across categories (energy, healthcare, housing) and can spike well above the default. Inflation risk on a long retirement is significant.

Property

Property values can rise and fall. ETQ uses a single average growth rate (default ) and a single percentage disposal cost (default ). It does not model jurisdiction-specific property taxes, capital gains, stamp duty, illiquidity, vacancy risk, regulatory caps on rents, or the time it can take to sell. Property is illiquid and a forced sale can realise materially less than the model assumes.

Market risk and timing

ETQ is deterministic. It produces one projection path per scenario. The real world is not deterministic. Two retirees with the same starting position can have very different outcomes depending on the sequence of returns in early retirement.

Privacy

ETQ runs entirely in your browser. Your inputs are not transmitted to any server operated by ETQ. To let you return to your work, ETQ stores your inputs and saved scenarios in your browser's local storage and session storage on this device, under keys beginning with etq:. ETQ currently uses eleven such keys, covering your calculator draft, your named scenarios, which of them you last opened, your walkthrough progress, the landing quick-estimate values, the example plan while you are exploring it, a display preference, and three notice acknowledgements. Everything is kept until you clear it, except the landing quick-estimate values and the example plan, which clear when you close the tab. This storage is not encrypted and is accessible to anyone using the same browser profile on this device.

Clearing browser data deletes everything ETQ has stored. It is not shared across browsers or devices, and private browsing does not keep it after the session ends. There is no cloud backup or recovery process.

ETQ does not use analytics, advertising, or third-party tracking, and every asset it loads, including the fonts, is served from the same origin as ETQ itself. ETQ sets no cookies of its own. Cloudflare, which serves the site, runs an automated bot check that stores one strictly necessary security cookie (cf_clearance) on your device to record that the check passed. It expires after about 30 minutes, carries no cross-site identifier, and is not used for advertising or analytics.

Data protection status

ETQ does not receive, collect, or have access to the financial figures you enter. To the limited extent that data-protection law applies to ETQ's browser-side processing and storage, the purpose of the processing is to provide the retirement-projection tool, remember your work on this device, and display necessary notices.

The lawful basis is the operator's legitimate interest in providing a privacy-preserving self-help tool and, where a contract is considered to exist, performance of the service requested by you. Because ETQ does not receive your inputs, ETQ cannot retrieve, export, correct, or delete them for you. You can delete them yourself at any time, either with the control below or by clearing this site's browser storage.

Erase your data

This immediately deletes all ETQ data from this browser profile, including your calculator inputs, saved scenarios, walkthrough progress, quick-estimate values and notice acknowledgements. It cannot be undone, and there is no backup. Data in other browsers, profiles or devices is unaffected, because ETQ has no copy of it to reach.

If ETQ is open in another tab, close that tab first. It still holds your figures in memory and may store them again when you return to it.

Hosting

ETQ is a set of static pages served from the global network of Cloudflare, Inc. Like any web host, Cloudflare handles the technical requests your browser makes to load each page, and Cloudflare states that it logs technical data about those requests, including the visitor's IP address, for security and performance purposes. Those server logs belong to Cloudflare and are governed by the Cloudflare Privacy Policy; ETQ has no access to them and receives no information about you from Cloudflare beyond aggregated traffic statistics that do not identify individual visitors. The figures you enter are never part of these requests: they stay in your browser and are not sent to ETQ or to Cloudflare.

About this service

ETQ is operated by Kenneth Bonnici, a natural person established in Malta. Contact: email ETQ.

ETQ is not a regulated firm, does not hold itself out as a financial adviser, and is not registered in any trade or public register.