The Writer’s Coin

It’s a question we all ask ourselves when we find a new job or when we just fantasize about the new job we’d like to have: If I was making X, then I could afford to do X.

After getting my new job, I spent a lot of time trying to calculate my new paycheck (I don’t start until Monday). There’s a lot to consider: Taxes, health insurance, 401(k) contributions, public-transportation costs that are taken out before taxes, and so on. I toyed with the math and had a ballpark idea of how much I was going to get every other week, but I wasn’t sure.

I am excited because I know this new job is going to help me accomplish my 2008 resolution of saving $10,000 for a down payment on a house. But I like to see the actual numbers and I can’t wait until Monday, so I did some research.

I found this really handy paycheck calculator that will take all those variables into account and spit out a very accurate number (I tested it with my current salary and it was spot on).

After fooling around with the calculator and crunching the numbers, here’s what I came up with:

• I can boost my 401(k) contribution from 4% to 7%. This is something I should’ve done a long time ago. I had it at 6% for a while but a couple things made me cut it back down to 4%, which is what my company matches at 100%.
• My health-insurance premiums will actually go down. I think it’s because it’s a larger, corporate company, I’m not sure. But now I’ll have vision and dental, which I didn’t have before.
• I’ll be able to boost my automatic savings from $200/month to $500/month. This is huge and it’s where all of my “extra” salary is going to go. Using ING’s handy calculator, I will be boosting my “savings + interest” from $2,447/year to $6,117/year. This, again, is HUGE.
• Lets not forget about the two additional paychecks per year. Because I budget on a two-paycheck-a-month schedule, that leaves me with two free paychecks that go straight to ING.
• Freelance Work. This is what I was going be rely on when I made my resolution. It will probably go up since I’m changing the way I charge my fees, but it may also mean more work.
• Blogging. So far this blog has made me $1.07, so I’m not expecting it to contribute too much. But I’m also an optimist so hopefully it’ll be able to at least pay my hosting fees ($60).
• Bonuses. My new job has a bonus structure in place, but I don’t know exactly how it works yet. Plus, this is what the word implies, a bonus, so I won’t be relying on it for this exercise.
• Miscellaneous. There are some other, extra sources of income I can pretty much rely on every year that will help out a little too.

Where does that put me in terms of my goal of saving $10,000 for a down payment in 2008? Squarely at around $11,500 for the year. Sounds great right? Not quite, don’t forget that my Roth IRA contribution limit goes up from $4,000 to $5,000 this year, so that means I will only have $6,500.

That’s $3,500 short of my goal.

The good thing is it’s only February and I have plenty of time to figure out how I’m going to come up with the rest of that money. The bad thing is that I also have to figure out how I’m going to keep my hand out of the cookie jar when it comes to paying for our honeymoon and any other wedding-related stuff that may pop up.

All told, my new job means I’ll be able to save/contribute to my 401(k) a total of about $6,000 more than at my old job.

I may still be short of my goal, but if that’s one hell of a way to start off the year.

*Of course, I may get my first pay check and the numbers may have to be tweaked, but that calculator looks pretty spot on.

PS The calculators I used to find out all these numbers are extremely helpful and I  recommend them to anyone that is trying to figure out how to achieve money goals. 

Tags: 2008 resolution, calculators, new job