Chapter 1: Thought Patterns
Calculating taxes on independent contractor income
It's important to set aside some of your side hustle or freelance money for taxes.
A short answer is that, if you're making less than $150,000 a year, and some of that money was independent contractor income, setting aside 20 percent of that money for taxes should be sufficient. This isn't 100% accurate, but it is conservative and will leave you with some buffer.
The longer answer is that the amount of taxes you'll owe on freelance work or gig work depends on how much money you made in a given year because the U.S. uses marginal tax brackets. We touch on marginal tax rates more in chapter 7.
This question gets asked a lot, so there are some online calculators that will help. I like this one from TaxAct.
Online budgeting app recommendations
A budgeting app will make your life so much easier. I personally use Rocket Money because it has a smooth app experience. You can learn more about them here (not an affiliate link).
Here are a couple roundups from my media colleagues I recommend.
Lifehacker's best budgeting apps
Chapter 2: Debt
A debt payoff calculator can help you set timelines for your debt payoff.
Calculator.net has a nice calculator that lets you line up your debts according to the avalanche method.
There's also this calculator from Charles Schwab, which lets you chose avalanche method or snowball method from the jump.
Chapter 3: Saving Rate
In this chapter, we talked about high-yield savings accounts (HYSAs). Many of the best HYSAs are online. Here's a roundup from my CNET colleagues I recommend.
CNET's best high-yield savings accounts
Chapter 4: Budgeting
If you haven't set up an online budgeting app by this point in the book, I recommend you do so. You can use the recommendations in the Chapter 1 section above.
One callout I have is that Ally Bank offers a feature called savings buckets. This is great for sinking funds and keeping yourself organized if you want to incrementally save money toward different goals that have different timelines. Here's a post from Ally Bank describing that feature in more detail.
Chapter 5: Income
Back when I was an editor at NextAdvisor, in partnership with TIME, we had a side hustles roundup that was killing it before the site was taken offline. Fortunately, you can still get to it using the Internet Archive. If you can tolerate long load times, here's a great megablog we did of 25+ side hustles.
26 Side Hustles That Will Make You Money
Chapter 6: Investing
Retirement account contribution limits may increase from year to year to keep pace with inflation. You can find the most updated contribution limits on the IRS' website.
Press release on the updated numbers for 2025
Chapter 7: Taxes
Marginal tax brackets change every year. This is due to inflation, but might also be due to new legislation or updates to the United States tax code.
You can always go to the IRS' webpage on marginal tax rates to get the most updated information. That webpage is here.
Chapter 8: Entrepreneurship
A good bookkeeper or bookkeeping software can help you keep your act together. I used Bench for several years, but no longer recommend them. Now I use Quickbooks.
Here are some roundups from my media colleagues to check out.
PCMag's best bookkeeping software for small businesses
Mashable's best bookkeeping software for small businesses
Chapter 9: Financial Independence
This website has some good blogs on FIRE if you'd like to read up about it. Here are some current articles to read to get yourself started.
Chapter 10: Legacy Planning
If you want some help getting your estate planning materials in check, I recommend Trust & Will (aff link). I used them personally to create my will and trust, and the above link will get you 25% off your order as of this writing.
