I am starting to transition my career goals. I'm hoping to get full or part time work that pays... Decent. (70k+ for full time) But then working as a freelance consultant to keep my toe in the museum world.

I am bulking up my education on grant writing - lots of experience but hard to lay out as I didn't keep a record of successful applications.

I'm selling my abilities to consult with boards of directors, and my location control skills too. Going to rebagle this post with links.

“It always costs about $200 more to fly into the Small City Airport, and there are vanishingly few direct flights there.“

Hi everyone!

It has come to my attention that a few people who shall remain nameless think that if they get a raise and it knocks them up into the next tax bracket, they should not take it bc they will lose money.

I read this and physically felt my soul leave my body and shatter. That is not true. Take your raise.

You may think that I, a trash vampire fandom blog, may not be the best person to advise you on finance. This is possibly true, but my mother worked for Ernst & Young and was a public company controller for many years, so I promise I’m not lying to you re: how taxes work.

I am going into this example assuming that you, like me, are an unmarried person who makes more than $0. The current IRS tax brackets are as follows:

Link to above table in case it doesn’t load.

This is not on the above table, but you, if you are a single person with no dependents (kids, ailing family members you are responsible for, etc—pets do not count, sorry) get a standard deduction of $12,000.

This means if you made $50,000 total you are not in tax bracket #3, you are in tax bracket #2, because $50,000 - $12,000 is $38,000. You had $12,000 deducted from your total income to become your taxable income, so your taxable income is in tax bracket #2 because $38,000 is lower than the upper limit, $38,700.

This means you would pay $952.50 plus 12% of any taxable income between $9526 and $38,700.

Remember: you make $50,000, but your taxable income is $38,000.

So, $38,000 - $9526 is $28,474. 12% of that is $3,416.88.

Remember, you pay $952.50 for your first $9526 as well. You therefore pay a total of $4,369.38 in taxes from your taxable income. That means at the end (before state taxes) you have made $45,630.62 net pay ($50,000 total income minus $4,369.38 in federal taxes).

So, that said, let’s take the following scenario to explain why you should take this raise:

You currently make $50,000 (as noted above), and your boss offers you a raise of $1000. So, with your standard deduction of $12,000, you now have $39,000 in taxable income.

Alas! you think, This knocks me into the next tax bracket! What shall I do??

Well, you take your fucking raise and pay $4453.50 total from your $38,700 + 22% of your $300 that put you into the next tax bracket ($66). This means you now pay $4,519.50 in taxes out of your total income ($51,000 - $4,519.50 = $46,480.50)

You make $849.88 more than you did before your raise.

TLDR: TAKE YOUR FUCKING RAISE

It’s just math.

If that was too complicated or annoying to read, just remember: making more money always gives you more money after taxes. Period. Always.

Also as a side note: this is why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tax plan makes sense. Billionaires would pay extra money on all wages they make after the first $500,000 total income make. That’s already a lot of dollars, especially considering if you make that much money you generally do itemized deductions and pay a lot less than you should, but that’s an argument for another day.

Another side note: @bitchesgetriches taught me almost as much about finance as my mom did. They have a way of explaining things that makes total sense to people who don’t know about finance, and I *highly* recommend you follow them, especially if the info above was new for you.

I apologize if I have any typos or weird formatting. I did this all on my phone.

Happy tax season! May your refunds be plentiful.

After many years of putting their brilliance on the internet for free, the Bitches are offering their first ever course on the topic of burnout! It was, to quote Piggy, a labor of love... but a labor nonetheless. And to quote Kitty as her body broke down into its component parts upon completion of this project, "Oh god my spleen!" (probably). In today's special bonus episode of the BGR podcast, the Bitches walk you through a sneak peek of their new course. Listen here or on your favorite streaming platform.