Cuéntamo Blog

How to get out of debt: snowball or avalanche method (with an example)

August 6, 2026

Having several debts at once —the credit card, the car loan, the phone instalments, the overdraft— is stressful for one specific reason: you don’t know where to start. You pay a bit of everything, the interest keeps running, and you feel like you’re running without moving forward.

The good news is that getting out of debt isn’t a matter of luck or of suddenly earning more. It’s a matter of order. There are two proven methods for deciding which debt to attack first, and choosing well can save you money, months of stress, or both. Here are the two, with a numeric example so you can see the real difference.

The new EU customs fee on online orders: 3 euros per item type from July 2026

August 1, 2026

From 1 July 2026, the price of orders from platforms like Shein, Temu or AliExpress has changed — not because the platforms themselves raised prices, but because of a new European rule. EU Regulation 2026/382, of 11 February 2026 (published in the Official Journal of the EU on 18 February), eliminates a customs exemption that had been in place for decades.

If you buy clothes, electronics or anything else from sellers who ship from outside Europe, you now pay an additional 3 euros per item type as an import duty. This is on top of VAT, which has applied to these purchases since 2021.

Why you quit every budgeting app (and it's not your fault)

July 23, 2026

You know the ritual. One day (often in January, or after a particularly bad month) you install a budgeting app. You give it a whole evening: you create categories, set limits, log the first expenses with enthusiasm. “This month, for real.”

Three weeks later, the app has twelve uncategorised expenses, the “Leisure” budget has been blown since the 9th, and you have stopped opening it. Until next January.

If this has happened to you more than once, here is some good news: the problem is not you.

Compound interest explained with real examples: the snowball of savings

July 15, 2026

Imagine two people. The first starts saving and investing early, with modest amounts, doing so consistently over many years. The second waits longer, saves twice as much each month, but only for half the period. In the end, the first person accumulates more, even though they contributed far less money in total.

That result seems counter-intuitive. How can someone who puts in less end up with more? The answer is compound interest: the mechanism that makes time, not the amount, the most valuable financial asset of all.

Fixed rate vs variable rate mortgage: what the spread is and how much your payment moves with the Euribor

July 9, 2026

Choosing between a fixed and variable mortgage is one of the most important financial decisions most people make. Not because it is technically complicated, but because the consequences extend over decades and the interest rate environment changes constantly throughout that time.

The good news is that there is no universally correct answer. There is, however, a way of thinking through the decision that lets anyone make it with confidence, without needing to be an economist.

How to maximise your self-employed pension: contribute the maximum, or invest the difference?

July 2, 2026

As an autónomo (self-employed worker) you get to choose (within limits) how much you contribute each month. And that raises a question almost nobody answers with real numbers: is it better to push hard and contribute on a high base from now to collect a bigger pension, or to contribute the minimum, invest what I save, and raise my base only at the end?

This isn’t a matter of faith. It depends on how the pension is calculated, and once you understand that mechanism you discover something that changes the whole strategy: most of your contributing life doesn’t count towards the amount of your pension. Let’s see why, and at the end we’ll show you a free calculator to test it with your own figures.

Self-employed contribution by real income in 2026: how it's calculated and what to pay each month

June 29, 2026

If you’re self-employed in Spain, your Social Security contribution is one of the most significant fixed costs of your activity. What you might not fully understand is how it’s calculated: why it can change from one year to the next, what it has to do with your invoicing, and why an unexpected adjustment letter sometimes arrives.

The answer lies in the contribution system based on real income, which links your monthly contribution to what you actually earn as a self-employed worker — not a freely chosen base. Understanding how it works is the key to paying the right amount every month and avoiding surprises at the end of the year.

How to calculate your net worth (and what to do with the number)

June 26, 2026

Your current account balance tells you how much money you have right now. Your net worth tells you how much you’re worth financially. Those are two very different numbers, and the second one is far more useful for making decisions.

You might have 5,000 euros in the bank and an 80,000-euro mortgage, a car loan, and two credit cards with outstanding balances. Your balance looks reasonable; your net worth is probably negative. Or you might have almost nothing in your current account because all your savings are in an investment fund and a Treasury bill. Your balance looks worrying; your net worth is actually solid.

What's new in Cuéntamo: net worth, advanced forecasting, investments and income tax

June 24, 2026

An accounting app isn’t a social network: if things are going well, you don’t need to open it every day. But over the last few months Cuéntamo has changed enough to deserve a proper look. And almost everything new has something in common: it solves something you used to do by hand, in a spreadsheet, or by checking four different places.

More than a list of features, this is a tour of what problem each new thing solves. By section.

A Year Without a Gestoría: What You Learn Doing Your Own Bookkeeping as a Freelancer

May 30, 2026

Last June, a freelancer we know told his gestoría (a tax/accounting firm) he wasn’t renewing. He’d spent four years paying 150 euros a month for a service that consisted of: he sent them the invoices, they filed his returns, and if he asked something they answered in 48 hours in a language that needed translation.

Eighteen hundred euros a year. For the IVA and the IRPF of each quarter, the annual IVA summary and the income tax return. It’s not that they did it badly: it’s that, for his case (a fiscally very simple activity), he felt he could handle it himself.