What Does Your Month Cost per Hour of Work?
Type in what you pay each month. Every line turns into the hourly pay it takes to cover it, so you can see what your life costs one hour at a time.
The first six lines are the bare minimum for one adult, the same basket described in What It Actually Costs to Show Up for Work. The lines below them are everything else: the car, the kids, the subscriptions, the dinners out. Enter what you actually pay, and leave a line blank if it does not apply to you.
Nothing you type here is saved or sent anywhere. The math runs in your browser and disappears when you close the page.
The Bare Minimum
Six lines for one adult. Enter your monthly amount for each.
For comparison, the basket in the article comes to about $1,892 a month, or $10.91 an hour. It assumes a studio apartment, groceries cooked at home, one doctor visit and one maintenance medication a year, a transit pass, a basic phone plan, and basic utilities.
Everything Else
Costs beyond the bare minimum. These are real costs for many households, and the basket leaves them out on purpose.
Your Month, Added Up
Your Pay
Add your hourly rate to see how your month lines up against your pay.
The 15 percent is a rough starting guess. Change it to match your pay stub.
Enter an hourly rate to see the rest.
A negative number means spending is running ahead of pay each month.
Want your numbers to count toward the regional cost-of-living dataset? Use the regional cost tool, which is separate from this page. To see how pay has fallen behind output since 1979, try What’s Your NPUX?
Every per-hour figure assumes a full-time year of 2,080 hours, which is 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. Each line is its monthly amount times 12, divided by 2,080. This tool is for perspective and is not tax or financial advice. Taxes vary by household, state, and income, so the after-tax figure is only an estimate.