Peace, Love & Spreadsheets

Tax brackets scare people. They think that as soon as you're in the "24% tax bracket", your entire income will be taxed at 24%. They think that if you're $1 into the next one, you'll lose money. This is not true. Tax rates only affect the income in that tax bracket. In other words, if you go $1 into that 24% tax bracket, you're going to have to pay 24% of that $1 in taxes. Not 24% of the rest of your income. The rest of your income is taxed at 10%, 12%, and 22%.  For example, here is the 2023 Married Filing Jointly schedule: Rate Range Tax 10% $0 - $22,000 10% within bracket 12% $22,001 - $89,450 $2,200 + 12% within bracket 22% $89,451 - $190,750 $10,294 + 22% within bracket 24% $190,751 - $364,200 $32,580 + 24% within bracket 32% $364,201 - $462,500 $74,208 + 32% within bracket 35% $462,501 - $693,750 $105,664 + 35% within bracket 37% $693,750 and plus $186,602 + 37% within bracket I like to think of it as chunks. Let's say you make $11...

How much should a family spend on food? Each month, the USDA publishes an index of the price of food , to be used for government programs that feed people, budget estimates, and now you! There are different ranges, from thifty to liberal. My family uses the Moderate plan to set our food budget, and then we know what portion of our "needs" is allocated for food. This calculator lets you enter how many people are in your family, and tells you the recommended budgets. For example, if you're a single parent feeding three teenage sons (egads) enter a 3 in the 14-19 year old male range, and 1 for yourself in the adult range. It is based on August 2023 prices. The prices do not change dramatically from month to month. Privacy note: As with all my calculators I do not save any numbers you put in this form. It's all you, all on the browser side. Child    Your family    Thifty    Low-cost    Moderate...

I have learned a LOT from personal finance books. Some good, some bad, all of them fairly easy to summarize!   The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life by JL Collins  Summary: Invest in VTSAX. It's a whole market index fund. It will have its ups and downs, you have to accept that, but it gradually goes up.  I'd add: I love this book, but I must add that FZROX works just as well if you're at Fidelity. It's the same thing and has no minimum to invest and no expense ratio.   All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan by Elizabeth Warren  Summary: Divide your income up into a simple 3-part budget. 50% for needs, 30% for wants, 20% savings and debt repayment. Use the USDA cost of food website to determine what portion of your food budget is "needs". I'd add: I love how simple this budget is and it really helped me figure out tough questions... how much can I afford for a car? How much should I be savi...

Sorry Dave Ramsey fans, I like my credit cards. In fact, I use them to separate out and organize my spending. Credit cards let you download spending information for free, offer points and rewards back, are widely accepted and build my credit. Before you even think about a credit card... I'll admit, I did have to get out of some credit card debt once, I'm not perfect. I wasn't paying enough attention and had gotten into the habit of paying MOST of the balance but not quite the whole thing. The balances climbed up, and I was paying interest. I got out of debt by sitting down with all my statements and looking at one number: PURCHASES . Credit card statements are loaded with fine print and they can be overwhelming with everything you've bought, but the number that matters the most is "how much did I spend last month" - it actually matters more than the balance! If your purchases are more than your income, you are going into debt. If your purchases are less than w...

It seems to be very rare for two partners to make the exact same income, so here is a calculator that gives you three ways to split your bills. From my experience in person finance groups, relationships are MUCH happier when both partners have similar discretionary/spending budgets. You both have as much money towards hobbies, it's an equal sacrifice to buy the other one a gift. But budgets are very personal so I'll try to present the math on three methods and avoid judgement! For the incomes on these I don't care if you enter per paycheck, per month, per year. It's all based on ratios anyway. Fixed expenses/bills will "default" to 50% of your total because I'm a big fan of the 50/30/20 budget. But I also don't care, enter what you want. Privacy note: As with all my calculators I do not save any numbers you put in this form. It's all you, all on the browser side. Income 1 Income 2 ...

Experts are all over the map on emergency funds. $1000. 1 year of expenses. 5% of every paycheck. All nice ideas, but it helped me more to think of the types of emergencies I'd like to fund, and the types of savings I'd like to have, and go from there. To summarize, I keep: $3000 small emergency checking account pad 3 months CD for big emergencies 3 month CD for emergencies or car buying Everything else in taxable brokerage What are my likely emergencies?  First, I went through my bills over the last year and looked at unexpected things that I HAD to pay for. Vet bills, car repairs, a new refrigerator when ours failed. If you don't have a house, car, or pets, your bills will be a lot smaller! I tell people they shouldn't ever get a pet if they don't have $1000 in the bank. Even a guinea pig can get an infection that requires a vet visit and antibiotics. If you want something to play with that you're not forced to maintain, get a Nintendo.  I totaled all these up...