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- Cost of living
What a month actually costs you — and what is left.
The numbers are current. The argument around them has not been reviewed since it was written.
In short
How much do I need to earn to live here?
Seven cost categories and the loan payment, ending in one break-even figure
$4,851 break-even a month, with the loanEvery other tool here prices the practice. This one prices the person running it: what it costs to live where you live, what the student loan takes, and what remains.
Start with my county ↓Housing, transport, food and medical by county; RAP, IBR and PSLF for the loan.
Worked example: California statewide, one adult, an $85,000 AGI on RAP and a $6,000 monthly take-home. Change anything below and all three move.
Where you live
Pick an area and the seven categories fill in from the MIT Living Wage Calculator.[1][2] Then change them. These are county averages for one adult; your rent is your rent, and a typed figure always beats an average.
Only two areas are shipped as presets, because those are the two whose figures were checked directly. Anywhere else in California: start from the statewide numbers and type over them.
What comes in
Take-home, after tax — not what you bill and not your salary. If you do not know it, the practice simulator works it out for a practice and the Job Advisor works it out for a job.
Adjusted gross income is what the loan plans are measured against, and it is not the same as take-home — it is roughly your profit or salary before tax, after the adjustments on your return.
The student loan
The rules changed on 1 July 2026. The Repayment Assistance Plan replaced SAVE, PAYE and ICR for new loans: 1–10% of adjusted gross income in bands, less $50 a month per dependent, forgiveness at 360 payments.[3] Public Service Loan Forgiveness survived — still 120 payments, still ten years, and most community mental health and non-profit work qualifies.
Break-even, and what is left
A framework people actually use
Most people who get on top of this did not invent a system. They followed one. The best-known is Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps — deliberately simple, ordered, and built around finishing one thing before starting the next.[5]
- 1$1,000 starter emergency fundBefore anything else. It is not enough to live on; it is enough to stop a flat tyre turning into a credit card balance.
- 2Pay off all debt except the house, smallest balance firstThe debt snowball. Smallest first rather than highest-rate first, on the argument that finishing a debt is what keeps people going.
- 3Three to six months of expenses savedA full emergency fund. For a practice whose income depends on clients showing up, the upper end of that range is the one worth aiming at.
- 415% of income into retirementConsistently, from here on.
- 5Save for children’s educationIf that applies to you.
- 6Pay off the house earlyEverything spare goes at the mortgage.
- 7Build wealth and giveThe point of the previous six.
Before any of this is real
Everything here starts from one figure: what actually reaches your account. If that is a guess, so is the rest of the page.
Work out your take-home →Sources
Estimates, not advice. Cost figures are county averages for one adult with no children and will not match your life. Loan figures apply the published formulas to what you typed and ignore capitalised interest, forbearance history, consolidation, joint filing and every other fact particular to your loans. Check anything that matters with your servicer and with a professional who knows your situation.
Money
What the practice pays you, and what you can keep.