I am paid semi-monthly, on the 15th and last day. I was very happy to see the calendar hit the 15th today....both because I want to continue having actionable items on my goals for the year, and also because I needed an infusion of money lol.
I was pretty impressed to see that the HSBC direct deposit is already in effect. That means that I will have met the requirements to earn the bonus with my March 31 paycheck, and can expect to receive the bonus itself by May 31.
I had to lower some of my planned payment amounts for a few line items, because there just wasn't enough to cover it all. This paycheck was my first at my newly increased salary and my estimate on PaycheckCity was a little off, so I need to go back in and recast my allocations.
Overall, I need to either increase income (which isn't all that easy since I am on salary), or get rid of a few obligations. I may have to consider lowering my 401k contribution, which I reeeeeeally don't want to do (but it's an option). I'm also going to take a look to see what impact changing my tax exemptions would have (I currently claim single 0, in the past when I've needed more money in each check, I've bumped to 1, but usually didn't like the results at tax time). That could also be an option just to get me through the next few months until I can set them back to 0. If the newly announced next coronavirus package passes, and we get an additonal $1400 check, I will definitely use that to help it along. I'm also hoping that they extend student loan forbearance (at a minimum).
All a work in progress. Either way, I am really enjoy tracking my spending by category, it'll help me determine what an appropriate amount to allot for that category is based on my current lifestyle. It feels like I am spending a lot on groceries ($123 since Jan 1), but I guess when considering that I don't spend any money on takeout, and make all of my food from that, it's $8 a day. Of the $275 I have spent so far this month, almost everything except groceries was either an outlier purchase or something that is a multi-month supply (prescriptions, printer ink, etc). I would guess my Feb spending will be lower. Hoping so, anyway.
Still waiting for my gift returns to be processed by Amazon, so no "fun/free" spending for me just yet. There's also a non-gift retuen still pending that will be refunded directly to my credit card. They told me on Wednesday that they should be processed no later than last night. Havent gotten any emails about it yet, so I need to get back on chat with them today.
January 15th, 2021 at 10:18 pm 1610749100
January 16th, 2021 at 09:10 am 1610788249
Subtract from that what you deposit into a non Roth IRS/401k, HSA, or FCA.
Subtract from that the standard deduction $12,550 for Single.
That is your taxable income.
You pay 10 p% on the first $9,950. So $995.
You pay 12% on everything from $9901 - $40,425. If your taxable income is less than $40,425, subtract $9900 from the taxable income amount and multiply by 12%. Otherwise, you owe $3,672. You add the $995 to that.
You pay 22% on everything from $40,526 to $86,375. If your taxable income is less that $86,375, subtract $40,425 from the taxable income amount and multiply by 22%. Otherwise up you owe $10,087 + 3672 + $990.
The next bracket is 24% and ends at $164,925...you do the math the same way. If you are over that amount, I’d pay to have my taxes done!
Note that these are Single rates - you can find others via the magic of Google.
January 16th, 2021 at 10:09 pm 1610834975
Lots of Ideas - thank you! I ran a few different calculators yesterday and decided I can live with the results.