Beyond Groceries: The Four Modules Now in Eini

Eini is a Swiss household cost planner. It started with groceries and meal planning, and now covers four more household costs — Career in Phase 2, Taxes in Phase 3, Housing in Phase 4, Insurance in Phase 5 — all available in the app today, each aimed at a cost that is decided a few times a year rather than every week.

The average Swiss household spends about CHF 629 a month on food and non-alcoholic drinks, according to the Federal Statistical Office (BFS). That is real money, and the line you can change fastest. It is not the biggest one.

Why did Eini start with groceries

Because you decide it fifty-two times a year. A grocery bill is the only large household cost you can move on a Tuesday afternoon — no notice period, no form, no counterparty. Plan the week, shop the offers instead of the aisles, and CHF 629 becomes closer to CHF 540 without eating worse.

Groceries were also where the method had to be proved. The Eini method — plan first, then let our algorithm match the plan against what is on offer — needs a cost that repeats often enough to show whether it works. Rent does not repeat. Your tax return does not repeat. Dinner does.

What costs a Swiss household more than food

Four things, and they are not close. Rent comes first; in most households it is several times the food bill. Then the tax bill, which in Switzerland is three bills stacked: federal, cantonal and municipal. The municipal multiplier is why two towns in the same canton, on the same salary, do not owe the same amount.

Third, the health premium — the one newcomers miss. Basic health insurance is not deducted from your salary. Every adult pays it separately, on top of what the payslip already takes. Our own indicative figures run from about CHF 338 a month per adult in Nidwalden to about CHF 453 in Geneva.

Fourth, what you earn. The payslip takes 5.3% for AHV/IV/EO on the whole gross, 1.1% for unemployment insurance up to CHF 148,200, typically around 1.3% for accident cover outside work, and a pension contribution charged only on the coordinated part of your salary — around 7–8% in the middle age bands. Gross is not net. But gross is the ceiling.

What is in the Eini app now

Four modules are available alongside groceries, in the order they were built:

The sequence is not arbitrary. What you earn sets the ceiling, so Career comes first. Tax decides how much of it you keep. Housing is the biggest single thing you spend the remainder on. Insurance is the one large recurring cost with a hard annual deadline, which makes it the most useful thing to automate. Travel is the next module.

What does the Career module do (Phase 2)

It tells you what your job pays elsewhere. You give it your role, sector, years of experience, region, skills and education, or your CV; it compares your salary with the official BFS wage statistics (LSE 2022) by role, experience and large region. It then suggests a realistic next step, shows the skills that role asks for, and estimates whether a course or certificate pays back.

This is Phase 2 rather than Phase 5 for one reason: a raise is the only change that lifts every other line at once. It is also what makes your grocery share of salary fall without buying anything differently.

What does the Taxes module do (Phase 3)

It takes your gross income, canton, exact municipality, marital status and number of children, and returns an estimate from official ESTV data, with your net salary line by line rather than a single number. The municipality matters as much as the canton, because its multiplier sits on top of the cantonal rate.

The second mode is the more interesting one: a deduction check that shows which deductions you may be able to claim. The categories exist already — commuting, work meals, further education, pillar 3a, childcare, health costs above a threshold, donations, debt interest — but whether you qualify, and for how much, depends on canton and situation.

How much is at stake? On our own working figures, the effective total tax burden on CHF 100,000 gross for a single person in an average municipality runs from about 11.4% in Zug to about 21.8% in Geneva — roughly CHF 10,400 a year apart. Those are indicative values, not official statistics; for your own case the Federal Tax Administration's tax calculator is authoritative.

This is general information about how the Swiss system works, not individual advice — your canton, municipality and situation change the numbers.

What does the Housing module do (Phase 4)

It answers one question properly: should I move? You give it your current city and rent, your income, your work location, your household size and how many days a week each person commutes. It then routes real public-transport and car journeys — not straight-line distances — so the commute appears as actual francs and actual minutes.

That matters because the obvious saving often is not one. Our own working figures put a 3.5-room flat at roughly CHF 2,800 in Zurich against CHF 1,800 in Winterthur, with local transport around CHF 120 and CHF 90 a month. The rent gap is real. Whether it survives two people commuting four days a week is what the module calculates.

It also compares places by taxes and health premium rather than by rent alone. Timing follows typical Swiss practice: a deposit of up to three months' rent, and a three-month notice period to the next official termination date. A move changes more than the rent, because grocery prices differ by canton too.

What does the Insurance module do (Phase 5)

It compares premiums for your canton, age, franchise and model, then tracks what you signed. Every policy gets stored with its renewal date and cancellation deadline, feeding a dashboard that shows total spend and warns before each deadline. A franchise calculator returns the cheapest level for your expected medical spend.

The mechanics are fixed by law. Adults choose a franchise of CHF 300, 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 or 2,500. Above it you pay a 10% retention on treatment costs, capped at CHF 700 a year. Four model families exist — standard, family-doctor, HMO and Telmed — and the alternatives trade some choice of doctor for a lower premium. Basic cover is identical at every insurer; only price and service differ.

What stays the same as Eini grows

Three things have not changed with the new modules. Eini is free to download and your first meal plan is free; unlimited meal planning and the Career, Taxes, Housing and Insurance modules are included in Eini Premium, billed through the App Store or Google Play or on the web at app.eini.app. Eini stays independent of every retailer and insurer, which is the only way a comparison is worth reading. And the grocery module keeps being developed: Phase 1 is not a stepping stone that got switched off once Phase 2 arrived.

The modules do the arithmetic for you, but the five checks they automate are still worth understanding, and worth doing by hand once a year:

1. Work out your grocery share. One month of receipts divided by net income tells you whether food is your problem.
2. Read your payslip line by line and confirm that no health premium appears on it.
3. Run your canton and municipality through the federal calculator, then the neighbouring municipality.
4. Price your commute in francs and minutes, not kilometres, before looking at flats outside your town.
5. Set a calendar reminder for early November, while an insurance switch for 1 January is still possible.

Groceries were the entry point because they were the fastest thing to change, not the biggest. Phase 2 benchmarks your salary by role, experience and large region. Phase 3 estimates your tax for your municipality and checks your deductions. Phase 4 costs a move against a real commute. Phase 5 compares premiums and holds your cancellation deadlines. All five — groceries and the four modules — are live in the app today.