Chueezie

A 401K plan is a type of retirement savings/investment plan into which pre-tax dollars are deposited. Usually employers provide some sort of matching program that hovers around 6%. All taxes are deferred until the funds are withdrawn.

Gross Pay = Your pay before deductions
Net Pay = Your pay after deductions

Deductions from your check include:

• Medicare
• Social Security
• Disability
• Health Care
• 401K
• State Tax
• Federal Tax

sangomaru

Please take a look at your pay stub.
Gross = total pay amount before taxes and other deductions
Net = total pay amount after taxes and other deductions

The more you make, the more they take.

syzygy

EMT Basic is a great certification to have. I got my EMT-B certification before I went to medical school. It was well worth it.

The information you learn in EMT-B is fundamentally basic, and yet the protocol you learn to handle all sorts of situations is rather sophisticated and forms the cornerstone for basic emergency medicine.

Read and memorize Emergency Care and Transportation for the Sick and Injured by Andrew N. Pollak and you will ace the EMT-B exam. It is important that you memorize pretty much everything, though. It sounds like a daunting task at first, but most of it is common sense and therefore lends itself to easy retention.

A solid knowledge of Chapter 7 (Airway and Breathing) and 8 (Patient Assessment) will probably allow you to pass the exam without knowing anything else. Be sure to focus on those two chapters.

SaintNexus

Ok, but a $72,000 gross pay translates to $45,000 Net Pay? Thats 37.5% taken out by taxes. There is no way it could be that high, could it?

I mean, I'm currently being deducted around 12%, why would I get triple the deduction in the future? Cause I make more?

But why so high? I figured nearly 20%, but nearly 40%?! No way.

I hope its by 20%, that would translate to $57,600, which is $4,800 a month.

My girl wants to be a Pharmacist, they make 6 figures, so you're telling me she's only gonna get $60k after spending 6-7 years in school? :/

SaintNexus

^Lmao! The book you mentioned is the exact same book that I'm using for my class. I have a midterm practicum on 10.20.10 for CPR-Child, Airway, Blood Pressure,Head-to-Assessment, IV, & DICCE. Then on 10.25.10, we have our Midterm Exam, which is 167 questions.

This is my 2nd time taking the class. I couldn't pass the first time cause I took it during winter, and it was just way too much info to handle in 6 weeks. You wanna know how bad it was? We have to have 75% or better to pass the class, and my highest score in all the exams was just 71%, lowest was 50%.

First exam was 115 questions, and I got 71/115 (62%), but that was in Winter. When I took the first exam again a few weeks ago, I had more time to study, and got 110/115 (95%) ^_^

Anyway, I got this app from iTunes called EMT Review. It has over 500 questions (I think), that give you scenarios and so forth for the National Registry.

But I finished reading Airway, and I just finished Assessment a few hours ago, both of which will be covered in our Midterm exam. But I still need to read Chapters 21, 32 (p 942-944), 33, and 34. I also gotta read Shock (ch. 23), Chest Trauma (ch.27), and a bunch of others. Hoping to finish reading it all by next week, and reviewing with flashcards until the exam.

dayrinni

You will not be taxed at the 10% income bracket, no sir. Plus you aren't factoring in state tax, disability, social security, medicare, etc.

I went to this website, http://www.paycheckcity.com/netpayca...calculator.asp and ran your numbers for CA. I put in $72,000 for your yearly salary, and then selected Monthly for the pay frequency. It comes out to:
This does not include any deductions (even the standard) but I hope you can see what will happen now.

I have used this calculator extensively and I am confident it works.

You have to pay around $11,000 per YEAR in Federal income tax alone! If you don't believe me, go to the IRS website. I just ran their calculator for $72,000 and this is what it told me (Ignore the stuff in the small font, I just put down 0's for how much tax I have paid so far for the year. The calculator helps you by telling you how much tax you how to pay the rest of your income tax for the remainder of the year):


Maybe you can ask your parents to show you a pay stub so you can see how much tax they really pay.

I thought like you once. When I did my first major summer job, where I was making $25/hr I had a real shocker. I thought to myself, "That is $1000 a week! I'm loaded!" You should of saw my face when I opened my first pay check and saw it was around $650! I was shocked.

dayrinni

Yep, taxes OWN YOU! As indicated by my previous post, I was utterly surprised my first time around.

Our combined income is around $130,000 yearly, after taxes it is around $80,000. That is $50,000 in TAXES!!!! Around $30,000 in federal income tax alone.

You know all this talk about the deficit getting out of control? Well you know about the Bush tax cuts? Taxes may go up, or they may stay the same. Regardless of what happens, you cannot predict the future and have to make sound financial decisions. And we are all trying to help you.

Especially with home owner ship, you always have to make sure you have a buffer in case something happens. So pay off your credit cards, save up 6 months of living expenses, and then start to splurge a bit.

Since you want to get a condo, I also went through a similar experience with building a house. We moved out of our apartment in Janurary of this year to stay with the family until the end of June - when our house was completed. The FIRST thing I did was with my extra money (we did not have to pay rent) was to pay off my credit cards. My first paycheck...bam paid off the balance of $1,400. My second paycheck...bam paid off my last credit card balace of $1,000. I was credit card free. Hurra! (On a humorous side note, one of them was my lexus card - gotta generate those points). Then I saved and saved and saved and saved. The only "big ticket" item I bought was a PS3. Other than that, I saved my money because I KNEW there would be expenses in the house - like that $500 watering equipment I bought.

Even though I have a good buffer saved up and we need to get the garage door openers/water softener/etc, I have not purchased them yet because they would dip into our buffer. I'm not taking that chance and we don't really need them yet.

I hope you find the above useful.

mikez

man get whatever car you want, but pay off your credit cards! lol

29% APR...

5 year treasury bond yields are like 1.9%

saving at a bank is like less than 1% right now

good ROI on the stock market is 8%

Nothing else you can do in life, short of discovering the key to become a million billionaire, can you get anything higher than 30% ROI on any money.

Paying off your credit card is like investing money into something that gives you 30% ROI, spent every single dime you have into it, empty your piggy banks. Because it will only be a matter of time before that 30% adds so much interest that 300 dollars a month will no longer cover it, then they will make you their b*** for life.

MBTC

Just your federal, state and fica will absolutely be close to that. Whenever I need to do a quick, non-scientific estimate of what my take home pay will be whenever an HR recruiter is discussing a monthly or hourly rate, typically I take the gross monthly pay and multiply it times .6. In other words never count on actually seeing more than 60% of your gross pay (although realistically you may see slightly more, but it's unlikely to be 70% if your income is beyond a certain point).

Here are a few more real world numbers that reflect my current employment / living scenario:

- $200 / month gasoline expenses.. gotta get to work and back
- $500 / month food for one person, can be more if I eat out or pay for others meal
- $500 / month deduction from paycheck for 401k - gotta save for retirement.. my generation (much less yours) will not benefit much from social security, the existing old folks are bleeding the system dry
- $120 / month health insurance. Good thing I'm not married or have kids, because then it would be $450 if I wanted to stay on the same plan.
- $115 / month car insurance.
- $15 / month dental insurance. This is actually a pretty good deal that tends to pay for itself
- $55 / month supplemental insurance. Basically covers deductibles and things that the basic health insurance doesn't cover. Not really a good deal unless I get cancer, get in a car wreck etc.
- $1000 / month basic apartment rent. Two bed/two bath with attached garage in good location
- $250 / month electricity and water (it varies but this is about average)
- $120 / month cable TV. This is one area I could really scale back, I do need the HDTV but I don't necessarily need so many movie channels I never watch. Take twenty off for that if you like
- $50 / month dry cleaning. Hard to call it necessary but I would be doing a lot of ironing myself which I can't stand, and I need my clothes in order for work. Every now and then a new girlfriend will offer to help with this but the offer tends to expire over time, and if you're married, forget about her doing it because Oprah taught her not to lift a finger to help you. Good news is your clothes last longer if you do this, they don't fade and you don't have to buy new stuff as often.
- $50 / month cell phone bill
- $50 / month highspeed internet (I could save a little bit by using my cable company as my internet provider but I have some specific reasons for doing this, your mileage may vary)


Now, I have consumed several thousand dollars, but haven't even listed a car payment (mostly because this can vary wildly among people, but if I bought a $35,000 car and put $5,000 down on it with financing for 5 years my payments would be around $550 a month, but we might as well call that $600 a month if we consider we will need a new set of tires every 25k miles or so, figure in amortized maintenance cost over the finance term (which gets higher as time goes by)

After all this, we are somewhere around the $3,500-$3,700 mark. And, I am in a part of the country with a pretty low cost of living, an apartment like mine would cost twice as much some other cities. I also have not mentioned buying clothing or entertainment expenses like beer, general dating expenses / bars, clubs etc, movies (renting or going out to), computer/video games etc. I mostly left that out of the equation because what a single guy does for fun / entertainment is different than what a married guy with kids would spend his money on (at that point youre saving for college funds, putting clothes on the kids back, etc).

SaintNexus

Wow, thank you all for the information, its a lot to take in right now; but after reading all this, one thing comes to mind:

FML! lol.

Seriously, f*** it. So even careers like a Pharmacist that has something like $100k annually, only translates to $60k?!

Damn, this means that me and my wife's combined income starting will be $150k ($70k me, $80k her), which translates to just $90k a year?! Damn, this is just a complete mind f^ck. Even when me n her reach our highest potential down the road with our careers ($120k each, for a total of $240k), we're still only gonna get $144k! Nearly $100k by just taxes?!?!

This is ridiculous. I remember seeing a video a few months back, saying that people in america don't have to pay Income Tax, that there is nothing in the Constitution that says that we have to pay Income Tax. And that the IRS uses fear (taking away all your assets), to get you to pay. If I find the video, I'll post it up.

IXI187IXI

iTrader: (3)

if your salary is 100k you should easily be able to afford a lexus. its all about not living beyond your means which puts people in a lot trouble.

SaintNexus

What about making $72k a year? That would translate to around $47,660 after taxes; basically $3,971 a month.

Right now, I'm making less than $1,500 a month, and I'm doing pretty good, but then again, I am living with my parents. The only thing I'm not paying for is rent, utilities, internet, tv and insurance; everything else for, I'm paying.

So, I think I should be doing pretty good with the amount I make to be able to afford a Lexus.

IXI187IXI

iTrader: (3)

i hate to be rude but a new lexus is not in your future. you cant depend on things that arent there or you dont know of. you dont know what you'll be making in the future or if you'll even have a job. do you plan on living with your parents the rest of your life? what if in 2yrs you want to buy a house and you cant because you went out and bought a new car?

to me it seems like your just waiting for someone to say yes you can afford it so you can go out and buy one.

ThaDRD

What world do you live in? Back when the economy was better, I was making $5k/mo ($60k/yr) and could easily afford an IS350 payment, mortgage, and still could stash money away.

Oh, how I miss my old job.

dayrinni

Hurra! You have made a huge step in understanding how money works in the real world.

Now it is time for some good news.

There is this concept with taxes, called the deduction. You can claim these deductions against your income to lower your tax burden. These deductions are money you spent for things like any tax you paid (except federal), medical expenses, interest on mortgages/student loans, etc. You pretty much subtract these deductions against your yearly gross (before tax) salary and then calculate your tax on that.Let me do a very easy example.

Let's pretend you make $1,000 a year. Let's pretend the tax rate is a flat 10%. You are left over with $900 per year - so you paid $100 in tax. If you had a deduction of $200 (ie: student loan interest), you would subtract this from your $1,000, giving you $800. Then you would apply the 10% tax rate on this new number of $800. So you will end up paying $80 in taxes, rather than $100. Even though you spent the $200 already, you still saved $20 by not having to pay the taxes.

Where is this important? A few places.
You can buy a house and claim the mortgage interest as a deduction. In the $2,000ish mortgage payment we do per month around $1,600 goes to interest. So that is $1,600 x 12 = $19,200 per year that we can claim as a deduction. So if you were making combined, $150,000 per year - your taxable income would be reduced to around $130,000. At that income bracket, the savings can be quite large. It just takes a bite out of the taxes.

The thing you read about people not paying taxes works something like this:
There are a TON of tax credits out there, like if you have kids, if you have kids in college, there is this other thing that allows you to pay lower taxes if you are under a certain income range - it is somewhere in the mid 40,000's. I don't know much about it, but just heard about it on the radio. Coupled with all of these credits and the deductions, it is possible not to pay any income tax (or not a lot) if you don't make a lot. Then on the flip side, if you are super rich, there are a ton of "tricky" things you can do to beat the system. There is this one guy I heard about from my worker where he has a huge plot of land and has loads of cash. He took a small section of it and turned it into a farm so he could claim huge tax breaks.

If you know the system you can beat it, apparently.


There is one last item: The standard deduction. This is automatically give to you regardless if you really have any deductions or not and if you choose not to claim anything like mortgage interest/etc. You get a choice: choose to claim "itemized" deductions (mortgage interest/etc) or simply just take the standard deduction. Obviously, you'd take the highest deduction. I think for 2009/2010 it was around $5,700 or something. So your overall taxable income is reduced by $5,700. Another way to say it is: you are not taxed on $5,700.

The tax business is really complicated. There is this thing called the AMT, which is used to make sure wealthy people can't beat the system but lately it has been hitting middle class families. I don't know too much about it but it can apparently own you.

Also, I am not a tax lawyer/accountant so I do not claim the above information is 100% correct. It is how I currently understand it as a person.