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Journey 25 · Adultingbeginningfinding direction

What Your Paycheck Actually Says

“They offered me $22 an hour and my cheque was way less than I worked out.”

You become: Someone who can read a pay stub

The single biggest shock of the first real job: gross is not net. Nine actions to read every line on your stub and know exactly what leaves and why.

10 actions3h 5m of work🌱 Beginning🧭 Finding direction

Understand

Every deduction on the stub, and which are optional.

Practice

Reading your own numbers instead of a generic example.

Create

A real take-home figure you can budget against.

Evidence

Your own stub, fully decoded, line by line.

3/10actions open below — the rest unlock when the journey is yours.
01

The gap

  1. Understand10m

    Work out what you thought you'd earn

    Hourly rate × hours × 52, or just your annual salary. Write it down before you look at anything else. This is the number in your head, and naming it makes the gap visible instead of vaguely disappointing.

    You’ll have:One number, written down.

  2. Practice15m

    Find your actual take-home

    Open a real pay stub — your employer's portal, a PDF, or the paper one. Find the line that says NET PAY. Multiply it by how many times a year you're paid: 52 for weekly, 26 for fortnightly, 24 for twice-monthly, 12 for monthly.

    You’ll have:Your real annual take-home.

  3. Evidence5m

    Name the gap out loud

    Subtract action 2 from action 1. That number is what the machine takes before you touch it. You are not bad with money — you were budgeting against a number that was never real.

    You’ll have:The gap, in dollars a year.

7 more actions · 2h 35m of work

The rest of this journey is one decision away.

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02

Line by line

  1. Understand15m

    Find FICA and understand what it is

  2. Understand20m

    Separate federal, state and local tax

  3. Understand15m

    Find what you're paying for insurance

  4. Understand20m

    Find the retirement line and the match

03

Take control of it

  1. Understand25m

    Understand what your W-4 is doing

  2. Create30m

    Decode your whole stub, top to bottom

  3. Create30m

    Rebuild your budget on the real number

Tools this journey uses

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