Take-home income

Gross income is pay before taxes and payroll deductions. Take-home income is the amount actually deposited or otherwise available for the household to spend or save after those deductions.

Cashflow Scenarios is designed around usable household cash flow, so take-home amounts will generally produce the clearest projection. The application does not calculate taxes or convert a gross salary into net pay.

• Start with the amount that reaches your account or is otherwise available after payroll deductions.
• Match the amount to its actual recurrence: weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, or one-time.
• Use the start date for the first calendar month in which the source should affect the projection.
• Add an end date when the income is expected to stop.

Create a separate income source for each earner or stream, such as two salaries, freelance work, or recurring benefits. The projection adds all applicable income sources for each month while keeping their names visible in the monthly detail.

Separate sources are especially useful in a what-if scenario because one job, benefit, or side-income assumption can change without rewriting the others.

For income that varies but is reasonably recurring, use a conservative representative amount at the matching frequency. You can create separate scenarios for lower and higher assumptions when the range could materially change a decision.

A known bonus or temporary payment can be entered as a one-time income source with a start date, or as a positive one-time event. Both approaches place the amount in one calendar month; choose the label that makes the scenario easiest to understand.

• Entering an annual gross salary as though it were monthly take-home pay.
• Treating biweekly pay as exactly two deposits per month.
• Subtracting health insurance, retirement contributions, or taxes again after using a net paycheck amount.
• Leaving temporary income active beyond its expected end date.
• Using an optimistic variable-income estimate without comparing a more cautious case.