Mapping Social Security Retirement Income - Gross / Net Medicare Deductions

Google Sheets
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How do folks map/categorize their social security income and medicare costs offsets?

Example Facts, let’s use:

  • Social Security gross benefit is $3,000.
  • Medicare A&B $170 (Expense)
  • Medicare D Rx $30 (Expense)
    The net benefit, of course, in this example is $2,800. (As you may know, these are determined once a year and ordinarily do not change mid-year.) The problem lies in the social security transaction is reported as a deposit to my bank account as a net number.

NOTE: I fully understand since the Medicare expenses are deducted before I receive the net income, they are “out of the budget.” But I was hoping to show in my monthly budget report the monthly gross social security INCOME, and then show the fixed monthly medicare related deductions as part of my nondiscretionary EXPENSES in my budget report.

My Categories

INCOME Categories
Social Security Net
Social Security Medicare
EXPENSES Categories
Health Insur Med A&B
Health Insur Med D Rx
(I “group” the latter 2 as Health Insurance for my monthly budget reporting.)

Of course, my net check for this example is deposited in my checking account and autocat categorizes the receipt as Social Security Net.

My Tentative Process/Solution

  1. I then, using the Add Manual Transaction tool from the Money Feeds, create an adjustment dated the following date, for $0.
  2. I then, using the Split Transaction tool from the Money Feeds, select the $0 adjustment transaction, and split it, as follows

Social Security Medicare +$200
Health Insur Med A&B -$170
Health Insur Med D Rx -$30

This results in the following Monthly Budget Report, which works for me, but is a lot of work!

INCOME
Social Security Medicare $200
Social Security Net $2,800
EXPENSE
Health Insur (Group)
Health Insur Med A&B $170
Health Insur Med D Rx $30

Is there a simpler way to track? Or, is there a way to additionally automate this tentative
approach (posting of a zero sum manual - but split - transaction each month), on the date after I receive my net benefit check?

Thanks for any thoughts, suggestions, additional/better approaches!

1 Like
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@Larry have you tried out the saved splits feature in Tiller Money Feeds? I think you could create a saved split to do this exact thing. Right, @randy?

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Will check it out! Thanks Heather

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@heather this is an interesting feature that i did not realize existed, with the mortgage idea splitting such as escrow amounts, would it be possible to somehow make the split look at a sheet that has an amortization schedule and split the principal and the interest seperate based on the month in the sequence?

I despise paying interest and it would motivate me to pay more on mortgage if i was easily able to see that amount add up each month