Product

The cost of owning something

The purchase price is half the question. Trove models the other half.

A car is a number on a cheque and then insurance, fuel, servicing, parking and tax for as long as it sits outside. A laptop is a price and then a case, a warranty and a replacement in four years. A dog is none of the price and all of the following decade.

The showroom quotes the first number. Trove models the second.

What it changes

When you ask whether you can afford something, Trove already tells you what it does to your reserve and to your goals. With a running cost recorded, it can also tell you when a purchase is comfortable to make and expensive to keep:

Buying it is comfortable. Running it costs more each month than you currently have spare.

Nothing above that sentence would have said so. That is the failure a price tag hides.

Stated, not guessed

Trove will not infer what your car costs from your fuel transactions. It cannot tell which of two cars a receipt belongs to, and a wrong attribution is worse than an absent one. You record what you know; costs you have not recorded are reported as unknown rather than as zero.

An unknown running cost is never treated as free.