Tools · True Hourly Wage
True hourly wage.
What your job actually pays per hour.
Your hourly wage at work is not your true hourly wage. Subtract work-related costs and add commute time, and the real number is often 20 to 40% lower. The Vicki Robin framing converts money to "life energy." A $150 dinner at your true hourly wage costs hours of your finite working life. Some purchases pass that test. Many do not.
After-tax estimate uses a 28% combined federal/state/FICAFederal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)The payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare, split between employee and employer.Full definition approximation. Adjust for your specific bracket.
WORKED EXAMPLE
$60,000 salary. 40-hour weeks. Commute 1 hour each way, 5 days. Work clothes $100/mo. Lunches $200/mo. Decompression spending $150/mo. Childcare to work $800/mo. True annual cost: $14,400. Effective take-home: $43,200. True hours: 40 + 10 = 50/week. True hourly wage: $16.62 instead of $21.63 nominal.
SALARY AND HOURS
Combined federal + state + FICA. 28% is a reasonable middle-income default.
COMMUTE
Gas, parking, tolls, transit pass.
WORK-SPECIFIC SPENDING ($/MONTH)
Convenience food, entertainment to unwind, etc.
PURCHASE TEST
RESULTS
THE LIFE-ENERGY FRAME
Enter your numbers above.
Methodology and credit
- The "true hourly wage" framing comes from Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez's Your Money or Your Life (1992). The book popularized the idea of converting money into hours of life energy verify×DON'T TRUST, VERIFYClaim: The "life energy" framing of converting purchases to hours of work was popularized by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez in Your Money or Your Life (1992).Verify at: Your Money or Your Life official site ↗Updated edition published in 2018. The book remains in print and is widely cited in the FIRE movement..
- The effective tax rate input is your blended marginal hit (federal + state + FICA). 28% is a middle-income default; lower-income filers may be closer to 22%, higher 35%+.
- The work-specific spending lines are the deltas you would not have if you weren't working: childcare needed to enable work, the lunches you wouldn't buy at home, the dry cleaning you wouldn't need without the dress code.
- Commute hours are real life-energy cost even though unpaid. Including them is the point of the framing.