About This Calculator
What it is, how it works, and the story behind it.
What It Does
What Is My Time Worth? is a free, in-browser financial calculator that computes your real hourly wage — what you actually earn per hour of life energy spent on work, after accounting for taxes, hidden costs, and hidden time. No signup. No data sent anywhere. Everything runs in your browser.
The calculator has three tools:
- Real Hourly Wage — your effective wage after all hidden costs of employment
- Is It Worth My Time? — a DIY vs. hire decision engine weighted by how much you enjoy the task
- Compare Two Jobs — compare any two offers on a true apples-to-apples basis
Methodology
The core methodology is inspired by Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. Their central insight: measure the cost of things in hours of life energy, not dollars. To do that, you need to know what an hour of your life is actually worth — not your advertised salary divided by 2,080, but your real take-home pay after every cost your job imposes, divided by every hour your job consumes.
Tax estimates use 2024/2025 IRS federal brackets with standard deductions and simplified flat-rate state tax approximations. FICA uses the employee share (7.65%). These are approximations — consult a CPA for your specific situation.
The Story Behind It
I built this after re-reading Your Money or Your Life and doing the math on my own real hourly wage. The result was humbling. Between commute time, decompression time, work lunches, and the elevated tax bracket, I was earning significantly less per hour of actual life than I thought.
The wake-up moment was standing in line at Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday afternoon — exhausted, overstimulated, and counting down the minutes — and realizing I was spending my finite life energy on things that didn't reflect what I actually valued. That calculator on a napkin changed how I thought about every dollar and every hour.
I'm Kenneth Cross — writer, developer, and parent in the Chicago suburbs. The source code is open on GitHub. If this tool has been useful, consider buying me a coffee or subscribing on Substack — I write about personal finance, time value, and the math of everyday decisions.
About Your Data
Short version: Nothing you enter is ever sent to a server. All calculations happen locally in your browser. No account required. No tracking of your financial inputs.
For full details, see our Privacy Policy. For site usage terms, see our Terms of Use.
Search Keywords
This real hourly wage calculator accounts for federal and state income taxes, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), daily commute costs and time, work clothing, work meals, childcare, decompression time, and unpaid overtime. The "Is It Worth My Time?" decision calculator helps you decide when to hire a professional versus doing it yourself — factoring in not just cost but how much you enjoy or dread the task. The job comparison tool reveals when a lower-salary remote position actually pays more per hour of life energy than a higher-salary office job.
If this tool changed how you think about time or money, a small donation keeps it free and independent. No pressure — the calculator will always be free.