Use these tips and guides to understand your pay, your tax and your budget. These original guides are written by us, and each one links to the calculators it talks about.
- How to Read a Payslip, Line by Line — What gross pay, net pay, tax, insurance contributions and the other lines on a payslip mean, and how to spot a mistake.
- Hourly, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly: Converting Pay Without Mistakes — How to turn an hourly wage into an annual salary and back, why months are not four weeks, and the traps that make figures look better or worse than they are.
- Marginal and Effective Tax Rates: Why a Pay Rise Never Costs You Money — The difference between the rate on your next pound or dollar and the rate on your whole income, and the myth about being pushed into a higher bracket.
- Retirement Contributions and Take-Home Pay: Before Tax or After? — How a 401(k), a UK workplace pension, Australian super and KiwiSaver change your pay packet, and the difference between before-tax and after-tax saving.
- How to Compare Two Job Offers Properly — A step-by-step way to compare salaries once tax, benefits, pensions and the cost of working are counted.
- Why Your Real Payslip May Differ From an Online Estimate — The common reasons a calculator and a payslip disagree, and how to close the gap.
- Bonuses and Overtime: Why They Seem to Be Taxed More — Why a bonus can look heavily taxed on the payslip, what really happens to the tax, and how to plan around it.
- How to Build a Budget From Your Take-Home Pay — A simple way to turn your net pay into a plan that covers essentials, savings and spending, without a spreadsheet degree.
- States With No Income Tax: What That Does and Does Not Mean — Why living in a state without income tax can raise your take-home pay, and the other taxes and costs that tend to make up the difference.
- Moving for a Job: Will You Really Be Better Off? — How to compare take-home pay, living costs and the one-off costs of a move before you say yes to an offer elsewhere.
- Self-Employed? How Much Should You Set Aside for Tax — Why freelancers need to plan for tax and insurance themselves, and a simple way to set money aside as you are paid.
- Asking for a Raise: Using Take-Home Numbers to Plan the Conversation — How to prepare, what to ask for, and how to see what a raise is really worth after tax.
- Student Loan Repayments and Your Take-Home Pay — How repayments taken from your pay work in principle, why they feel like a tax, and how to check yours.
- A Yearly Tax Check-Up in Thirty Minutes — A short annual routine for checking your tax code, your withholding, your savings and your records, so you are never surprised.