I earn a , lose % of it to tax, and costs $.

I earn a , keep $ in cash earning %, and spend $ a month.

Change any underlined word. Your hour after tax: $18.75, and it stays off the card.

The car $35,000

1,867 hours of your life

January to late November.

Eleven months of your life. Buy it only if you would work eleven months for it.

Money is Time mist.huliwood.com

Idle cash melting

40 hours of your life a year

The first week of January, every year.

8.3 months of spending. Six is insurance. The other 2.3 months cost you 11 hours a year for nothing.

Money is Time · idle cash mist.huliwood.com

Price something else

Assumptions tax 35% · inflation 3%

Tax on your income35%

0%30%60%

Inflation3%

0%6%12%

The thinking behind it Money is Stored Time The essay this tool came out of: money as a battery you charge with hours of your life, why the hourly wage is a trap, and the assets that store time for you. About 1,100 words. Read the essay → Ten countries, one price list The Hours Index The same iPhone, Tesla and Big Mac, priced in the hours an average worker in each country works for them. The iPhone 18 Pro takes 30 hours of work in Switzerland and 327 in Mexico. See the index →

How to work out what something costs in hours

Take what you earn in a year and take off the tax. Divide what is left by the hours you work: 52 weeks of 40 hours is 2,080. That is your hour. Divide any price by it.

$60,000 a year, less 35% tax, is $39,000. Divided by 2,080 hours: $18.75 an hour.
A $35,000 car ÷ $18.75 = 1,867 hours of your life: a working year filled from January to late November.

At that hour, the things the calculator suggests cost:

a $6 coffee: 19 minutes, Monday from 9 am to 9:19 am
a $1,199 iPhone: 64 hours, the first two weeks of January
a $2,500 MacBook or trip: 133 hours, the first three weeks of January
a $35,000 car: 1,867 hours, January to late November
a $60,000 down payment: 3,200 hours, a whole working year and the next until mid July

Why hours

Every dollar represents hours of human life already spent – and every purchase is a decision about how to redeploy that stored life.
– Money is Stored Time

Idle cash

Cash that sits still loses what inflation takes, less what it earns. Six months of spending is insurance: the months you could live on if the pay stopped. The rest melts for nothing. With $25,000 in an account paying nothing, 3% inflation and $3,000 of spending a month, the cash loses $750 a year: 40 hours of your life, the first week of January, every year. Eleven of those hours are the $7,000 above six months of spending.

What it leaves out

It counts 52 weeks of 40 hours. Holidays, overtime, the commute and money you earn without working, such as dividends, move the real number one way or the other: fewer hours worked for the same pay make each hour worth more, unpaid ones make it worth less.