Where to start

Understanding my paycheck

Where your money goes before it reaches you.

Here's where to start — a calculator to run the numbers, a plain-English guide, and a short lesson with a first move. Which lesson fits depends on where you are.

Tool Paycheck calculator

See exactly where each dollar you earn goes — taxes, deductions, and what lands in your account.

Open the tool Guide Guide to First Paycheck

Walk away knowing exactly where every dollar of your first paycheck goes — what's withheld, what's yours, and where to put what's left.

Read the guide For starting out Your first paycheck, line by line

Read your own pay stub and explain every deduction.

Take the lesson A few years in Money has two jobs

Name today money and tomorrow money, and start sorting any decision into one or the other.

Take the lesson Building for others My teenager got a summer job.

Carry the teen-Roth math and open a custodial Roth on this year's earned income before it's gone.

Take the lesson