Title: Product | MoneyBadger URL: https://moneybadger.us/product/ Description: A coach in your corner that does the thinking for you: profession-aware defaults, built for lumpy paychecks, pension math, and the way essential workers actually get paid. The product # A calculator that does the thinking for you. Every other budgeting tool asks you to figure out where the money should go. MoneyBadger already knows. We built it around the realities of first-responder and active-duty pay, so you can just keep going. [Get your plan](https://moneybadger.us/snap) See the plan Free, no sign-up About 90 seconds Built with real first responders Why MoneyBadger ## The paystub holds what a bank balance hides. Generic apps treat a first responder like a salaried desk worker. Every place they guess, your check already has the answer. **Most apps** Start at your take-home and average it out. **MoneyBadger** Reads the base, overtime, and deductions on your paystub for you to review. **Most apps** Treat overtime like normal income to spend. **MoneyBadger** Routes overtime to savings and goals before it disappears. **Most apps** Ignore your pension and deferred comp entirely. **MoneyBadger** Reads your tier and projects what retirement actually looks like. **Most apps** Hand you a budget and hope you stick to it. **MoneyBadger** Shows you the read first, then carries the figures you confirm into your plan. The difference ## Prescriptive, not descriptive. Most money apps tell you where your money went. MoneyBadger helps you decide where the next check should go before you spend it. Your real pay in, one plan out, every month. Other tools Spent on dining **$612** Spent on gas **$188** Savings left **?** Last month, after the fact. MoneyBadger 457(b) contribution **$1,284** Sinking fund **$640** Free to spend **$1,688** Next month, decided in advance · a few lines from one $6,420 steady take-home. It already knows ## Profession-aware defaults. Your plan already knows about union dues, pensions, differentials, BAH/BAS, PSLF eligibility, and the pre-tax vehicles your employer offers, before you type a thing. Your firefighter plan already accounts for: IAFF union dues 457(b) · pension 24/48 shift differentials Structural overtime PSLF eligibility Your police plan already accounts for: PBA dues Pension tiers Night & court differentials 457(b) PSLF eligibility Your active-duty plan already accounts for: BAH BAS CZTE tax-free zones TSP + match Base pay tables · PCS Your nurse plan already accounts for: Shift, weekend & charge differentials 403(b) Student loans Per-diem hours The FSA most nurses leave unspent ### Built for lumpy paychecks Overtime isn't extra, it's structural. We plan your budget on your **steady take-home**, the pay you can count on, and route your **overtime** into a sinking fund on top. Slow months don't hurt; heavy-OT months don't vanish into lifestyle creep. ### Pension & 457(b) math, made plain See your projection at 20, 25, and 30 years of service. Model a DROP, a buy-back, or a 457(b)/401(k) split, all in plain English. Illustrative: 68% of final salary at 25 years, about $6,240 per month. Separate illustration, not the sample plan below Example shown for illustration only, not a projection of your actual pension. ### Built on published research Allocation defaults are grounded in published research and reviewed against real first-responder pay stubs. Every recommendation is explainable, and you can see the work. [See the methodology](https://moneybadger.us/methodology/) See the plan ## This is what comes out. Your real pay in, one plan out. Here's a sample of the finished artifact before you build your own. Illustrative sample Firefighter monthly plan Your 50 / 30 / 20 split runs inside your steady take-home. Overtime is planned on top, never blended in. Monthly steady take-home $6,420 Needs Rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, insurance, transport, minimum debt. $3,210 50% Wants Dining, streaming, hobbies, travel, what makes the off days worth it. $1,926 30% Future self 457(b) or 401(k), Roth, and pension top-up, funded from your steady take-home. $1,284 20% Overtime ~$1,100 routed on top, never blended in Cash reserve→High-interest debt→Your future Debt does not wait for an overtime month. Once the steady money available to your plan covers the essentials floor, a plan with debt moves 5 percent of the take-home it runs on out of Wants and sets it aside for debt every month, and the move that follows points it at your highest rate. If the steady money available to the plan is short of essentials, the plan holds that extra payment and works on the gap first. The waterfall adds to debt when a heavy month comes. This is an illustrative sample. A real plan is tuned to your profession, and every number traces to a cited source. [Get your plan](https://moneybadger.us/snap) > "I spent 31 years looking at my paycheck and throwing it in the shredder." Retired San Francisco fire deputy chief, 31 years When you're ready ## Stop guessing. Get the plan. Your real pay. About 90 seconds. A specific answer shaped to your profession and the way you get paid. [Get your plan](https://moneybadger.us/snap) Bring it to your department --- Generated from the live page source by apps/web/scripts/generate-agent-mirror.mjs; do not hand-edit. Regenerate with: npm run generate:mirror -w moneybadger-web. If this file and the live page ever disagree, the live page wins.