Money questions, answered

Yes, and the arithmetic is not close. Starting ten years earlier with a small amount usually beats starting later with a large one, because the early shillings compound for the longest. The common mistake is waiting until the amount feels dignified — by which point the thing that was doing most of the work, time, has been spent.

Three to six months of expenses is the usual answer, and the more useful question is how quickly you could reach it. If your income is irregular, lean toward six; if you have dependants relying on you, lean toward six as well. Keep it somewhere it can be withdrawn in a day — its job is availability, not return.

Probably not. PAYE rises in bands, and NSSF, SHA and the housing levy are all percentages of gross — so a raise increases four deductions at once. Only the portion above the band threshold is taxed at the higher rate, though; the whole salary is never re-taxed. If the net went DOWN, that is worth querying.

No. This is the most persistent myth in Kenyan pay, and it costs people promotions. Only the shillings above the threshold are taxed at the higher rate. Earning more always leaves you with more after tax — the increase is just smaller than the headline.

It is a statutory 1.5% of gross pay, matched by your employer, under the Affordable Housing Act. It is not optional for salaried employees. What matters for planning is that it comes off before you see anything, so every budget and loan-affordability sum should be built on the figure after it — not on your gross.

Compare the rates honestly, after tax. A digital loan or Fuliza balance costs vastly more than any legal investment returns, so clearing it is the highest-return thing available to you. A cheap SACCO loan can be different. The exception in both cases is a small emergency buffer — without one, the next shock puts you straight back into the expensive debt you just cleared.

It is roughly 400% a year. A daily rate is the most effective way to make a very expensive loan sound small, and it is not a trick — the number is accurate, it is simply quoted over a period short enough to look harmless. Borrowing at 400% to bridge a gap that recurs every month means the gap now costs more than it did.

Ask whether that 12% is flat or on reducing balance. A flat rate charges interest on the full original amount for the entire term, even though you are paying it down — so a 12% flat loan costs roughly what a 22% reducing-balance loan does. Both are legal, both get quoted, and only one of them sounds expensive.

Your own savings are pledged as security, so that portion stops being available for your own borrowing even though it still appears in your balance. If they default, it is taken. The realistic question is not whether you trust them — it is whether you could absorb the loss and the frozen borrowing capacity at the same time.

Not necessarily, because those two numbers are not the same kind of number. The MMF figure is gross — 15% withholding tax takes it to roughly 9.8%. The T-bill quote is a discount rate, which is not a return at all: the true yield after tax works out differently again. Comparing the headlines directly is the most common investing error in Kenya, and this app computes both on the same basis so you do not have to.

In shillings, yes. In what those shillings buy, no. With inflation above 6%, money in a 3% account loses purchasing power every year — the balance rises while the value falls. This is the quietest way money is lost in Kenya, because nothing ever appears to go wrong.

Different, not simply safer. Tier-1 SACCOs are SASRA-regulated and often pay materially better than bank deposits, but your money is less liquid and your shares are not a deposit you can simply withdraw. Read which pool a quoted rate applies to — dividends on shares and interest on deposits are different rates on different money.

Recognise what is actually being allocated. In pure cash every member ends the cycle identically — everyone pays every month and receives the same pot once. What differs is timing: receiving in month one is an interest-free loan from the group, receiving last is an interest-free loan to it. That gap is real money, so rotating who goes first between cycles, or drawing lots each cycle, is the fairness mechanism rather than a formality.

SHA is a floor, not a plan. It is built around accredited public facilities, so if you or your family currently use private hospitals, SHA alone is a change in the level of care rather than a cost you have covered. Decide deliberately which you are planning for — the mistake is assuming SHA continues whatever you have now.

Because it moves the opposite way to everything else. School fees end, the commute goes, the house gets paid for — ordinary costs drift down in real terms. Medical does not: premiums are banded by age and climb steeply, on top of general inflation. A household spending 6% of its budget on cover today typically needs around 19% of its retirement capital set aside for it. That amplification is invisible in a monthly budget.

Often not. Kenyan insurers commonly decline NEW members past their mid-sixties, admitting older people only where cover has been held continuously. So the decision about retirement medical cover expires BEFORE retirement does. If you intend to have private cover at seventy, the time to hold it is well before sixty-five.

Not without adjustment. It comes from American market history and sizes a pot meant to last forever. Two Kenyan realities change it in opposite directions: retirement spending does fall in real terms here too, but less than the Western literature assumes because extended-family obligation does not retire — and medical costs climb steeply while everything else falls. This app prices those streams separately rather than applying any multiple.

Statutory figures — PAYE bands, NSSF, SHA, the housing levy — come from the Acts and are cited on each calculator. Market rates come from a published feed maintained by our sister tool Mwangaza Yield, which derives them from Central Bank of Kenya releases and verifies them against real contract notes. Where a figure is our estimate rather than a published one, the calculator says so.

It is free, and nobody is paying us. There are no affiliate arrangements on any product listed and no advertising or tracking scripts. Every calculator runs in your browser and sends nothing anywhere; the one exception is something you have to ask for — saving a plan across devices, which needs an email address. Even the action plan is generated on your device by a deterministic engine; nothing is sent to any AI provider. The privacy notice sets out the details. If any of that changes, it will be stated plainly rather than discovered — a tool that quietly earns from steering you is worth less than no tool at all.

No. JiPange is not a licensed financial advisor, and everything here is arithmetic plus published rates — it does not know your circumstances. It is built to let you check a claim somebody else has made and to arrive at a conversation with a bank, SACCO or advisor already knowing what the numbers are.