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Stop thinking in pounds and face the mathematical reality of what your spending costs in actual hours of your life you give to work.
Whether it's a Sunday breakfast or a pair of shoes, use this quick calculator to show you how many hours of your life you need to spend at work to pay for it.
Why this calculator is different
Most online tools use your gross wage, which completely lies about your income to minimise the reality of your spending. This calculator uses your true net take-home pay hourly rate after standard UK tax (20% or 40%), National Insurance (8%), and your workplace pension deductions have been taken (based on a standard 37.5-hour working week).
Enter your gross annual salary, pension %, the item name, and the total cost amount to see the exact number of hours, days, weeks, and years you must physically sit at your desk to pay for it using cash you own.
Shocked by your results? Want to beat the system? I did too.
When I looked at the cold maths of mortgage interest and realised how much money it was going to cost me over 25 years, I decided to fight back. By tracking every single penny and treating my household like a business, I cleared a £100,000 mortgage in just 4 years on an average wage.
To take control of your own cash numbers right now, choose your next step below:
How the Reality Hits Home
It is far too easy to look at a £50,943 gross salary and think of your time as being worth £26.12 per hour. But once the taxman and your 3% pension contributions take their cut, that hour actually leaves a crisp £20 note in your hand.
When you spend £20 on a takeaway, you didn't just spend twenty pounds - you spent an entire hour of your life at work to buy it.
If you are on the UK average wage of £39,000, that same £20 takeaway actually took you 1 hour and 16 minutes of hard work to earn.
The Ultimate Motivation Trick
If you want a massive eye-opener, use our mortgage calculator to find the total amount you will repay over your entire term (including all the interest).
Put that monster total figure into this calculator as your purchase cost. Seeing how many years of your career are dedicated solely to paying off that debt is the ultimate incentive to get aggressive and clear it as quickly as humanly possible.
Now that you know exactly how much of your finite life your spending costs you in hours - and not just pounds - it is time to learn how to fight back.
Ready to improve your finances?
Now that you know how the numbers stack up, it's time to learn how to fight back. Dive into The Lady Frugal Journal to read real stories and honest strategies from someone who has been there, or discover how to organise your cash using The Pots Budgeting System.
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