After I accept a job, especially under a new contract with a new pay-rate, there's always a little bit of anxiety for me until first payday - namely, "How much money will I take home?" Because sometimes there can be real sticker-shock that first Thursday you get your first paycheck. Between federal taxes, state taxes and everything else, it can be quite disappointing (or even alarming).
Well, I just found a website that allows you to input your weekly gross salary, state deductions, etc so you can see how much you'll actually be taking home on a given contract. Here's the link:
http://www.paycheckcity.com/netPayCalc/netpaycalculator.aspI thought this would be especially helpful for the "Can I really live off of this amount of money for x number of weeks / months?" conundrum.