Skip the generic "$30k a year" answer. Add up your actual fixed costs and get your real number.
Rent, insurance, groceries, everything you can't skip — by category.
Your minimum viable income, monthly and annual.
Stack it against the "$30k a year" and "$3,000 a month" benchmarks.
For the reasoning behind this, see our guide on calculating your minimum viable income.
Minimum viable income (MVI) is the least amount of money you need coming in each month to cover your fixed, non-negotiable costs. Not your lifestyle, not your goals — just the floor that keeps rent paid, the lights on, and food in the fridge. It's a personal number, not a headline figure, because your rent and your city aren't the same as anyone else's.
Enter your fixed monthly costs by category and it adds them up into your MVI, shown both monthly and as a yearly figure. Then it compares your number to two commonly cited benchmarks people search for — $2,500/month (the "$30,000 a year" figure) and $3,000/month — so you can see how your real number stacks up against the headlines instead of guessing from them.
If you already have some steady income, salaried work, a predictable retainer, enter it in the optional field to see whether it covers your floor on its own, or how much of a gap your irregular income needs to fill.
$30,000 a year and $3,000 a month get searched constantly because people want a quick yes-or-no on whether they're okay. But housing alone can swing the real answer by a factor of two or three depending on where you live. The same $3,000 a month might leave plenty of room after rent in one city and get consumed by rent alone in another. Your MVI is the number that actually answers the question, because it's built from your costs, not an average.
Say your fixed costs come out to: $1,400 rent, $180 utilities, $350 insurance, $200 minimum debt payments, $450 groceries, $300 transportation, $120 other.
Neither the $30k nor the $3k comparison is "right" or "wrong" here, they're just reference points. The $3,000 total is the number that actually matters, because it's built from real rent and real bills, not an average.
Once you know your floor, the next step is sizing a buffer around it and making sure income actually arrives before it's due, not just that it adds up to enough over the year. See our guide on budgeting an irregular income for how the floor and buffer fit together, and our guide on household finances with an irregular income if you're calculating this for more than just yourself.
In a lot of the US, yes, especially without dependents and without high rent. In a major metro with expensive housing, it's tight to impossible without roommates or subsidized housing. $30,000 a year is about $2,500 a month before taxes, and whether that covers your fixed costs depends almost entirely on your rent or mortgage.
For one person in a low-to-moderate cost area, usually yes. In a high-cost city, $3,000 a month can be consumed by rent alone before anything else is paid. The number that actually matters is your own minimum viable income, calculated from your specific fixed costs.
List every fixed, non-negotiable monthly cost: rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, minimum debt payments, groceries, transportation, and any recurring bills you can't skip. Add them up. That total is your minimum viable income.
No — this calculator totals your fixed costs, which is a spending-side number. If you're comparing it to gross income (like the $30k/year or $3k/month benchmarks), remember taxes come out before you see that money, so your take-home will be lower than the gross figure.
That's the point of running your own number instead of relying on a headline. The benchmarks are just reference points; your fixed costs, especially rent, are what actually determine whether a given income is enough for you.
SteadyCash lays out your income and expenses on a calendar, so you can see months in advance whether you'll cover your fixed costs. One-time purchase. No subscription.
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