Simulate

The journey of a dollar

Watch one paycheck actually move — through taxes, into needs and wants, and out into savings, investing, and debt payoff. Drag the controls; the flow updates live. Nothing here is saved.

Gross monthly pay

Taxes & FICA, effective rate (you set this) 22%

Needs, share of take-home 50%

Wants, share of take-home 30%

Of savings & debt bucket: emergency fund 30%

Of savings & debt bucket: retirement & investing 40%

Savings & debt payoff bucket = whatever's left after Needs and Wants (20%). Within it, extra debt payoff = whatever's left after emergency fund and retirement (30%).

This runs on a slider you set once. In the app, this same kind of flow is drawn from your real logged paycheck and spending, automatically, every pay period. See what's app-only →

Run it forward

The same pattern, over years

Keep this exact split every month — what does the savings side grow into, and how much flows out to debt, after a stretch of years?

Years 20

Assumed annual growth rate 6.0%

What this is not: this shows the arithmetic of a fixed split and a steady assumed growth rate, held constant for illustration — real income, spending, and returns all change year to year. It isn't advice about how to split your own paycheck or what to invest in; those depend on your situation.