The tracker converts your annual salary into a time-based rate and then multiplies that rate by the time that has passed since your selected start date. If you enter a yearly salary of 600,000 and start the counter at the beginning of the year, the tool estimates how much of that annual amount has been earned by the current moment.
This is intentionally simple. It spreads salary evenly across the full year instead of modeling exact payroll dates, weekends, vacation days, bonuses, overtime, commissions, pension contributions, taxes, or employer-specific pay schedules. That makes the page useful for perspective, but it will not match a payslip line by line.
This is not financial advice. Treat it as a budgeting and motivation tool, especially if you are connecting income to savings rate, FIRE progress, or monthly investing habits.
Suppose your annual salary is 600,000 and you start tracking from January 1. Halfway through the year, a simple time-based model would show about 300,000 earned. If your salary is paid monthly, your actual bank deposits may not line up perfectly with that number, because payroll arrives in chunks rather than continuously.
The point is not to replace payroll math. The useful part is seeing the relationship between salary, time, and spending decisions. If a purchase costs 6,000, the tracker can help you understand roughly how much work-time that amount represents.
Read the live number as an estimate of earned salary over time. If you enter gross salary, the number is gross. If you enter after-tax salary, the number is closer to usable income. Mixing the two is a common mistake and can make the result feel more precise than it really is.
For FIRE planning, the tracker is most useful when paired with savings rate. Income alone does not tell you how fast you build wealth. The real driver is the gap between income and spending, then how consistently that gap is invested.
Either can work. Use gross salary if you want to understand headline compensation. Use net salary if you want a number closer to practical budgeting.
Paychecks arrive on payroll dates, while this tracker spreads salary evenly over time. Taxes, benefits, bonuses, and deductions can also create differences.
Yes, but indirectly. It helps you think about income over time. For an actual FIRE estimate, combine it with savings rate, investing assumptions, and spending.