A Timely Calculation

It appears that a lot of school age children will be learning from home this fall.  Parents will need to find someone to be there with them to help.  For many parents, one of them will be staying home and either cutting their hours or, at least temporarily, moving out of the work force.

How much do you need to adjust your budget?  Try this calculation.  The number may not be as high as you think.  Still hard, but maybe not impossible.

1.  Take your total salary, not your take home,  and subtract the taxes you have to pay on that amount.  Remember, there are federal, state and local taxes you get to subtract.  Take into consideration your partner's income.  It might put you in a higher tax bracket.  That means you may get to subtract more!

2.  Subtract the day care costs you normally paid.  You are now the daycare provider.

3.  Subtract the transportation costs you had for getting back and forth to work.  You live there now.  :)

4.  If you needed extra clothes for your job, subtract that cost.  You can really dress down now.  So can you kids.

5.  If you were the cook for your family, subtract the extra costs for take out and easy to do food.  You may still have some, leave that in, but it will drop.  Believe me.

6.  Anything else that you can subtract that I haven't thought of.

The resulting end number that you still need to cut from your budget might be a lot smaller than you originally thought.

Good Luck!