How many hours of work to afford it?
Everything you buy is really priced in hours of your life. Type in the thing you want and what you earn per hour — this shows the real price tag: your time.
Gross pay, before taxes — your paycheck takes a cut first. For the after-tax version, run your numbers through the Paycheck Calculator and use your take-home hourly rate here.
| Price | $1,299.00 |
| Already saved | $300.00 |
| Still to earn | $999.00 |
| Workdays (at your hours/day) | 5.0 days |
| Workweeks (5 days a week) | 1.0 weeks |
| Progress so far | 23% |
Why price things in hours?
A $1,299 laptop is an abstract number. "One full workweek of my life" is not. Pricing purchases in work hours is a classic budgeting trick because it compares the two things you actually trade: your time and the thing. It works especially well for the big stuff — a $30 coffee habit is about an hour a week at many wages, and a car payment is often a full day of work every single week.
Want the flip side — turning your salary into an hourly rate, or your hours into a paycheck? Try the Salary to Hourly Calculator and the Hourly Paycheck Calculator.
For general information and motivation only — not financial advice. See our methodology & sources.