ABOUT BUY OR BOLT
The math should
serve your life.
Most affordability calculators ask what a lender might approve. That matters—but it is not the same as asking whether you will still like your life after the payment clears.
Why this exists
Buying a home can look fine on paper while quietly taking over everything else: travel, investing, childcare, dinners out, an emergency fund, or the freedom to leave a bad job. Buy or Bolt puts those tradeoffs next to the mortgage instead of hiding them behind it.
The calculator starts with take-home pay and real-life spending for its Life Fit. Lender Lens is separate because lenders use gross income and required debts. Future Fit shows what a change in monthly investing could become over time. Different questions deserve different math.
What we are—and aren’t
Buy or Bolt is an independent planning tool. It is not a lender, mortgage broker, real-estate brokerage, insurance agency, financial adviser, or preapproval. No bank or insurer is paying to influence the result. If that ever changes, we will label it plainly.
Your numbers stay in your browser.
We do not need an account, your address, or a sales call to show you the tradeoff. Reloading the page clears the information you entered.
How we approach the numbers
We use published sources, show editable assumptions, and avoid pretending an estimate is a quote. The calculation suite checks affordability rules across a wide range of incomes, savings goals, down payments, and interest rates, along with every ZIP-level tax profile bundled into the site.
That still cannot know the condition of a particular roof, an insurer’s wildfire model, a future assessment, or the rate a lender will actually offer. When you have a real tax bill, insurance quote, HOA statement, or loan estimate, use it.