Financial Advice Priority Calculator
Tell us about your situation and get a ranked list of where your financial attention should go first — with an urgency-versus-upside map to guide your next move.
Priority scores are estimates based on your inputs against common Australian financial planning benchmarks. Not financial advice.
How the Priority Ranking Works
Not all financial gaps are equally urgent or equally valuable to close. A missing will for a 28-year-old with no dependants is far less pressing than a missing will for a 52-year-old with three children and a family home. Similarly, an unoptimised super strategy matters more the further you are from retirement, and a debt problem is urgent regardless of age. This calculator attempts to reflect that reality by weighting each area by three factors rather than just ticking boxes.
The Three Scoring Dimensions
Gap measures how far your current situation is from optimal in each area, scored 0 to 3. A gap of 3 means you have not addressed this area at all. A gap of 0 means it is well covered and no action is needed.
Urgency measures how quickly a gap in this area could cause harm — from low (the risk is real but slow-moving) to high (a gap here could cause significant damage quickly). Your age, dependant status, and mortgage status adjust the urgency weighting for each area.
Upside measures the potential benefit from closing the gap — how much wealth, security, or peace of mind you would gain by addressing this area. Insurance, for instance, carries high upside because the downside of not having it can be catastrophic.
Your priority score for each area is gap multiplied by urgency. Areas with both a large gap and high urgency appear at the top. The matrix then plots each area by urgency (horizontal axis) and upside (vertical axis) to show whether each belongs in Fix First, Plan Next, Tidy Up, or Monitor.
The Fix First / Plan Next / Tidy Up / Monitor Framework
Fix First areas are high urgency and high upside — these are your most important actions. If an area is in this quadrant, it should command your full attention in the next 30–90 days.
Plan Next areas have high upside but lower urgency — they matter a lot, but you have time to approach them thoughtfully. These are your 3–12 month priorities.
Tidy Up areas are urgent but relatively lower upside — they need to be addressed, but the improvement will be incremental rather than transformational. Schedule them, then move on.
Monitor areas have lower urgency and lower upside in your current situation. They are worth keeping an eye on but do not need immediate action.
Why Life Stage Changes Everything
A 29-year-old with no dependants and a rented apartment has a very different priority map from a 45-year-old with two children, a $600,000 mortgage, and a business. The younger person's top priorities are typically emergency fund, debt, and insurance. The 45-year-old may find estate planning and retirement planning jump to Fix First alongside insurance. Running this calculator at different life stages will produce meaningfully different outputs — which is exactly the point.
Using the Results as a Roadmap
The output from this tool is designed to help you decide where to spend your next 90 days of financial attention. Print or screenshot your priority stack, pick the top one or two items, and research what action looks like for each. You do not need to complete everything at once — consistent, focused progress on your top priorities over 12–24 months produces dramatic improvements in overall financial health.