Boom! You have now finished your budget calculator! In the bottom right of your calculator you should see a summary of how much money you have coming in, and how much money you have going out. Those numbers combined equal your Monthly Surplus/Deficit..aka how much you are making (or losing) each month.Â
Under that highlighted in yellow, is your Total Runway. If you are making more than you spend each month, great job! You will see a message highlighted in yellow that says âYou are cash flow positive.â This means that you can take your time job searching and be super particular about the type of role you are looking for because you will not run out of money in the meantime.Â
If you do not have an income, or are spending more money than you make each month, you will have a negative number for your Monthly Surplus/Deficit, and you will see a number highlighted in yellow underneath it. That number is the total amount of months you have left until you run out of money and MUST find a job :(Â
Now if that number is greater than 6 monthsâthe high average time it takes to find a new jobâyou should be okay to conduct a selective job search and be just fine. However, if that number is less than 6 months, or you think your search will take longer than normalâŠyou need to increase your runway to give yourself time for a proper search.Â
There is no science or special ingredient for how to best cut your expenses. Starting with your discretionary expenses and moving into your core expenses, be honest with yourself and evaluate what things you can live without. As you play around with the calculator and cut spending in certain categories, you will notice how it impacts your monthly net income in the bottom right of the calculator.