your real hourly rate — including commute, anxiety, and getting dressed. your contract doesn't mention those hours. your therapist does.
Everyone knows their salary. Almost nobody knows their real hourly rate. When you include commute, getting ready, post-work decompression, Sunday evening dread, and the 3am "did I reply to that email?" anxiety — your actual pay-per-hour drops dramatically.
Take your annual salary. Divide by actual hours spent on work-related activities — not just desk hours. Include commute (both ways), morning preparation, post-work unwinding, and mental load. The average office worker spends 10-12 hours per day on work-related activities but gets paid for 8. That's a 25-50% pay cut nobody talks about.
Your contract says you work 8 hours. Reality says you wake up an hour early to get ready, commute 45 minutes each way, spend 30 minutes after work decompressing, and 2 hours on Sunday dreading Monday. That's not 8 hours. That's 11-12 hours. Same pay. Very different hourly rate.
Next time you're about to spend 30 minutes driving to save €5 on groceries, check if that's worth your real hourly rate. Spoiler: it probably isn't. This calculator helps you make better decisions about your time — or at least feel worse about the ones you've already made.
Working from home eliminates commute and most preparation time. This can increase your real hourly rate by 20-40%. If you're earning €35/hour on paper and your real rate is €22 in the office, working remotely might push it to €30. Still not €35. But closer. Your pajamas are doing heavy lifting.