Simulation

Climbing the Ladder | Simulation | CambridgeOCR Level 3 Award in Personal Finance

Last updated 6 Aug 2026

Try this mini personal finance simulation activity to help deliver the CambridgeOCR Level 3 Award in Personal Finance.

Climbing the Ladder is a free interactive simulation about the biggest borrowing decision most people ever make. Students face a real mortgage on a first flat and four products that look almost the same on day one: fixed, variable, tracker and offset. They choose how interest rates will move over five years, pick a mortgage, and watch the monthly payment rise, fall or hold steady before seeing what each option would truly have cost. The clever twist is that there is no single right answer, because the best deal depends entirely on what rates do.

Play the Climbing the Ladder simulation here

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