Doing the Math

I set up my budget for 2013, BEFORE I took a look at Revenue Canada's website and realized that CPP, EI and Federal Tax contributions are going up!

What does that mean?

It means that the original amount of income I used in the budget, is going to be less than what I had to work with last year.  Le grr!

If I did the math correctly (and I can't see that I haven't), my new income will be $1,567.79 per paycheck.  That's a difference of $67.43 per paycheck, for a total difference in take-home of $1753.18 in 2013. 

What does that mean for me?  Well, looking at my budget that's an entire months payment back to my credit card, by year's end.  Double grr!

So - looks like I'm going to have to rejig a few things.  I dislike this part of budgeting, but being $200 shorter each month is going to mean that this is necessary.

The only thing that may save all this is if there is a sudden and completely surprising raise in my pay!  To offset the increases in contributions this year, and keep my paycheck showing the same amount of net income (basically not actually changing), I'd need to see a raise of $1,754.00 - a 3.06% raise.  A $3,000 would be a raise of 5.25% over what I'm currently making.  It would mean my take home pay would increase $9.39 over my 2012 take-home.  I am in the market to continue to increase my take home pay, for sure.

Looks like it's time to negotiate a bit of a raise for myself...