The budget app for tipped workers' real cashflow

Floor-budget. Take the lowest weekly take-home from your last 12 weeks — not the average — and use that as your planning baseline. Fixed expenses (rent, car, insurance, debt minimums, food floor) have to fit under that number. Anything above the floor in a higher-tip week goes to a Buffer category. The 2024 Economic Policy Institute restaurant-worker survey showed median annual tipped-worker earnings of $28,700 with weekly variability commonly exceeding $300 between best and worst weeks. After 2-4 months of disciplined buffer-funding, you'll have one month of expenses banked; after 6-12 months, two to three months. Now you're no longer spending the same week's tips — you're spending last month's tips, which is the stable position. Cash Compass tracks the buffer balance against a target.

Federally, yes — the IRS requires reporting all tips totaling over $20/month to your employer on Form 4070 by the 10th of the following month. Most POS systems track credit-card tips automatically; cash tips are the worker's responsibility. The 2024 IRS Tip Income Reporting program (TRDA) data showed under-reporting of cash tips is widespread but increasingly audited as electronic-payment trails grow. Practically: log your cash tips at the end of each shift, voice entry takes 3 seconds. Cash Compass keeps a running total per shift type. At year-end the CSV export gives you the documented annual total — useful for verifying against your W-2 (which should already include both credit and reported cash tips) and for income-verification needs like apartment rentals or loan applications.

Yes. Tag each income source by job — Tips: Bar, Uber Net, Server Wages — so the category chart shows what each gig actually earns over time. The 2024 BLS multiple-jobholder data showed about 5.2% of workers held two or more jobs simultaneously, with tipped workers and gig workers heavily represented in that group. Multi-jobbing affects tax filing — your W-2 from the bar plus 1099 from Uber means you might owe estimated quarterly taxes on the Uber side. Cash Compass tracks both income streams and the deductible expenses (mileage on the Uber side, work supplies on either) separately. CSV export at year-end gives clean separations for tax prep. Be aware: total income from all jobs might push you into a higher bracket than a single-job worker, so set aside 25-30% of gig income for taxes from the start.

Unreimbursed employee expenses for W-2 tipped workers are not federally deductible through 2025 (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act suspended the deduction). Some states still allow it on state returns — California, New York, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Alabama, Arkansas, and Minnesota among them. Cash Compass tracks the expenses regardless (Career: Supplies, Career: Vehicle, etc.) so the data is there if state-level deduction applies or if you're 1099-classified. A hairstylist working as a 1099 booth-renter, in contrast, is Schedule C and can deduct shears, products, station rent, and a portion of phone/internet — substantial savings worth tracking carefully. The classification (W-2 vs 1099) matters more than the expense list. The 2024 Bureau of Labor data showed about 60% of cosmetologists are 1099-classified booth renters or self-employed.