Gross income is the amount of money you earn from your employer before tax deductions and other withholding, such as Social Security, Medicare, health insurance, and contributions to your retirement accounts, pension funds, or savings accounts. Gross income also includes money you earn from self-employment.

Net income is the amount that remains after the taxes and other withholdings are deducted. This amount is sometimes called take-home pay.

Money uses gross income in the Savings and Spending Budget to help you set goals for items that often are not part of net income, such as retirement. If you really want a simple budget where you only track your expenses against your net pay, you may want to use the Essential Budget.

If you want a Savings and Spending Budget and you currently track only your net income in Money, you can set your goals based on your gross income and later set up gross income tracking in Money. Or, you can adjust your Savings and Spending Budget based on your net income.

When setting up the Savings and Spending Budget, you do not need to get your paystubs in order to estimate your gross income. You can just enter an estimate. Later, you can adjust the estimate you made if you want to.

When you set up your Savings and Spending Budget and want to estimate your gross income, include everything: salary, bonuses, commissions, income from self-employment, dividends, retirement income, child support, and whatever else you receive from any source.