Case: Dana's 12-month budget

Every budget for the self-employed rests on one number: what the year leaves after taxes, treated as a forecast from last year's data.

Dana's forecast year is 430,000 UAH before taxes. The taxes are 6% of income plus 1,902.34 a month, 48,628.08 for the year. So 430,000 − 48,628.08 = 381,371.92, about 31,780.99 a month, is the money she actually gets to allocate.

The salary, the saving and the cushion all have to fit inside this figure, not inside the 430,000 gross and certainly not inside a good month. Starting from the after-tax year keeps every later choice honest: you can only hand out money you will actually keep.

A payment day works best as a fixed sequence, so money is split before it can be spent:

1. The payment lands in the buffer — one account where everything arrives.
2. 6% goes to the tax account at once — the state's share leaves the same day, so it is never mistaken for yours.
3. On the 1st: 1,902.34 to the tax account, 28,000 salary to the spending card — the fixed contribution and the month's pay.
4. 2,800 of the salary moves to savings — saving comes off the top, not from whatever is left.
5. After the quarter, taxes are paid from the tax account — from money that was waiting for them.

The order matters because each step protects the next: the state's share and the saving both leave before the card ever sees them, and the quarterly bill is paid from money already set aside, never from the buffer or the cushion.

The cushion fills from three streams, and it is worth knowing the month it reaches its target of six months of essentials, 138,614.04 UAH (essentials plus the fixed contribution).

Dana's cushion: 53,400 reachable today, 2,800 added from each salary (8 × 2,800 from October to May), and a 40,000 deposit maturing in March — 115,800 by the end of May, still short. In June the buffer's spring surplus, 41,434.26, moves in: 115,800 + 41,434.26 = 157,234.26, which passes the target by 18,620.22.

That surplus is the first money in the plan with no job yet. It can wait in savings for a goal or for investing later. Everything up to the target protects; everything above it is free to grow.

A plan built on last year's income must be tested against a worse one before you trust it. A fair stress test lowers every month by the same share — here 20%.

In that weaker year Dana's after-tax income averages 25,044.33 a month, below the 28,000 salary. A buffer started from zero can't hold: it goes negative in December and ends the year 35,468.08 down. The 28,000 salary that is comfortable on the forecast is too high for a 20%-weaker year.

The point is not to size the salary for the worst case, but to know the plan's weak spot and plan around it: a small starting reserve in the buffer, or a slightly lower salary until the spring proves itself, and the April review that catches a bad year (about 10,268 in the buffer instead of 65,164) while a gentle change is still enough.