How To Do Everything

Were you aware that you don’t earn as much as you may have thought you did?  If you are like most Americans you earn an hourly wage, however once you deduct the costs from working you will find that your hourly wage is actually a lot lower than you may have expected.

1 Figure out your work related expenses: There are several factors that go into figuring this step out.  You will need to figure out how much it costs you to commute, your costs for child care, work related clothing, and food costs in excess of what you would consume at home.

• Commuting: Calculate how many miles you travel each day to work.  Multiply that number by how many days you travel to work.  This will equal how many miles you travel to work each week.  Then figure out how much it costs you by mile by using your mpg for your vehicle.  For most small cars it is around $0.38/mile.  EX: If you travel 10 miles to work everyday and you work 5 days a week = 50 miles per week.  Multiply 50 by $0.38 = $19.00 to travel to work each week.
• Child Care:  Sit down and figure out what you spend each week or month on child care.
• Clothing: How often do you have to buy new clothing for work to replace worn out or ill fitting clothing.  You can estimate this.
• Food: Do you bring your lunch from home or do you eat out?  If you eat out, figure how much more it costs you to eat out vs bringing you lunch from home.

2. Subtract work expenses from your annual salary:  This will produce your actual earnings.  EX. So if you made $48,000 per year and had costs of $5,000, you would only make $43,000 per year.

3. Divide your actual earnings by the total hours you spend on work related activities:  This would include business trips, meetings, parties, commuting.  EX.  If you leave your house at 6:30 am and you don’t get home until 4:30 pm, this means you would devote 50 hours per week to work or 2500 hours each year.  $43,000/50 = $860 or $42,140 annual earnings.

4.  Figure out what you make an hour: $42,140/50 weeks per year = $842.80/week, $842.80/50 hrs per week = $16.86/hour.

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