Income
Understanding Your Income in Buckets
Buckets uses your income as the foundation for every calculation — budgeting, projections, and retirement planning all flow from it. Here's how to enter it accurately and what the numbers mean.
Gross Income vs. Net Income
Gross income is your total earnings before any taxes or deductions — typically your annual salary or contract rate.
Net income is what actually lands in your bank account after federal, state, and local taxes, plus deductions like health insurance and 401(k) contributions.
In Buckets: You enter both gross and net income directly. We don't try to calculate taxes for you — tax situations vary too much. Look at your most recent pay stub or last year's tax return for accurate numbers.
Buckets uses net income for your monthly budget (discretionary, needs, wants) and gross income to calculate your savings target (e.g., 20% of gross).
Setting Up Household Income
If you're planning as a couple or family, Buckets lets you add multiple income earners. Each person gets their own gross and net figures.
On the dashboard, Buckets shows each person's individual contribution as a percentage of total household gross income. This helps you see how income responsibilities are distributed and how a change — like one partner going part-time — would affect the whole picture.
- Go to Income in the sidebar
- Each profile gets a name, emoji color, gross salary, and net salary
- The Combined row at the top of the Net Income card shows your household totals
Salary Increase Assumption
In Growth Assumptions (Retirement page), you can set an annual salary increase rate. This tells Buckets how fast to grow your income in projections.
A typical assumption is 2–4%:
- 2%: Roughly matches inflation — your real purchasing power stays flat
- 3%: Modest merit increases on top of cost-of-living adjustments
- 4–5%: Career growth trajectory, promotions, or fast-growing fields
This rate compounds annually in long-horizon projections. Even a 1% difference over 30 years creates a significant gap in projected outcomes.
Variable or Irregular Income
If your income fluctuates — freelance, commission-based, seasonal — we recommend using a conservative monthly average based on your last 12 months.
- Add up your total net income for the past year
- Divide by 12 to get your monthly average
- Multiply by 12 for the annual figure to enter in Buckets
Budget from your average, but plan for your slow months. If you have a bad month, your discretionary buffer absorbs it. If you have a great month, bank the surplus.
How Income Flows Through the App
Your retirement projections use gross income as the base for future income growth, and net income to establish what "maintaining your lifestyle" means at retirement via the Lifestyle Multiplier.