04 · The Five Columns
The video names the columns. This page is the machinery behind them: who does the taking, what instruction they are following, why the amount can move during a year, and what event finally decides whether it was right.
WHAT THIS LESSON TEACHES
- Five columns, in the same order on every stub: earned, federal, FICA, state, landed.
- The federal column is an estimate sent in early, and the yearly return is where it is settled.
- FICA is Social Security and Medicare, and its rates are set in law rather than by anybody's form.
- The state column is the one that changes most, because states are genuinely not alike.
- On this practice stub $2,051.28 earned arrived as $1,600.00, which is what Lesson 1 divides.
THE ONE ACTION
Read your own most recent stub tonight and say all five column names out loud
One action per lesson. Not a homework pile — one thing, small enough that it actually happens this week.
YOUR FAMILY HANDOUT
PDF
Taxes Dont Hate You Study GuidePublished worksheet for this lesson
GO DEEPER IN THE BOOK
Money, Start Here
Chapter 4, page 34
The expanded edition of this lesson's handout, sold separately: ten pages on this one lesson — the story, the worked math at three scales, the six what-ifs, the traps, and the deeper layer.
Digital edition · $9.99Paperback on Amazon · $24.99WORDS IN THIS LESSON
GROSS PAYNET PAYWITHHOLDINGFICAW-4TAX REFUND
Plain about what this is. General financial education, not financial advice, not tax advice or investment advice, and not a recommendation about your situation. Every dollar figure is an invented practice number for a made-up household. Written for adults, 18+.