My wage, before taxes, is about $34.80 per hour assuming I work 52 weeks a year for 8 hours a day. But what I’ve realized recently is that I should be adding my commute time to the 2,080 hours and subtracting my vacation & holidays. Let’s see what happens.
In a year, there are 261 weekdays (365 – 52 Saturdays – 52 Sundays). We get 10 holidays and 15 vacation days. In addition, we get up to 8 sick days, of which I’m on track to take 5. So the number of days worked is 231 (261 – 10 – 15 – 5).
The number of hours spent working or in my car each day is 10.5 (8 hours of work and 2.5 hours in my car).
10.5 hours x 231 days worked = 2425.5 hours for my job each year.
To find my real salary, I take my salary and add benefits and subtract the cost to get to work.
I use Mrs. Frugal’s benefits for the most part, as she’s a teacher and teachers have great benefits. My primary benefit is 401(k) matching. That adds about $653 this year.
I then subtract what it costs me to get to work. I drive 5o miles round-trip and I assume it costs me $0.39 per mile. This must be adjusted to become pre-tax dollars. In other words, I have to earn $0.52 in order to cover the expense of driving one mile (0.39/0.75). This comes out to $26.00 per day, or $6,006 per year (231 days * $26.00 per day).
So I take my salary, add $653 to it, subtract $6,006 from it, divide by the hours spent in my car and at work, and I get $27.68 per hour. After tax, this is $20.76 per hour.
When it comes down to it, that doesn’t seem like a whole lot of money given my degree and time spent in school.
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Well, very interesting analysis . . . and a bit discouraging, I suppose, when you look at the commute time/gas and wear/tear involved, etc. However, I would have to ask, “Do you give the company a FULL 8 hours a day to the position?” Perhaps you really only “work” 6.5 hours a day and you spend the rest of the day doing things not directly related to what you are being paid for (this would certainly be typical in our company – and of me). So, would that therefore move the hourly wage back up?
Just a thought – a very clever analysis for which I give you high marks.
Dad