How Much Money Do You Really Make?

Do you still hold down a full time job that earns you active income? If so, how much do you actually earn per hour for the time you spend? If you are paid on an hourly basis, then you probably already have a good grasp at how much per hour you are bringing in. But what about those of us who are paid on a salaried basis?

Since most salaried employees don’t get paid any extra for working overtime, the earnings per hour can fluctuate. Some salaried workers may work 40 hours per week while others can often put in well over 80 on a consistent basis. I myself am caught somewhere in between those two numbers.

My Work Life Un-Balance

I recently found myself forced to put in back to back 90 hour weeks in order to finish up a project at work. During those two weeks I came to realize that having a job basically sucks! Not that I haven’t had this thought before, it just came back to me and highlighted why having a work life balance is so important to me.

Working this many hours over the span of two weeks brought out several issues for me which included -

• Spending Less Time With My Children
• No Time for Exercise
• Increased Stress
• Start Eating Unhealthy Foods
• Not Enough Sleep

The list above highlights a few of the issues that I am trying to avoid. Unfortunately, as my number of hours worked increases, so do the severity of the highlighted issues and the importance of building that work life balance that I seek.

Calculating My Earnings Per Hour

For simplicity, I will say that I earn a modest $75,000 USD per year in salary. That is a decent income that I am happy to have right now. If it were a standard 40 hour per week job, I would be making about $37.50 per hour (based on a 2,000 hour work year). Looking at those numbers, it doesn’t look all that bad.

Unfortunately, I have never put in a 40 hour work week since I have been in my current position. If I were asked to work 90 hours per week all the time (as I recently have), my earnings would drop down to $16.67 per hour (based on a 4,500 hour work year). I would never be able to sustain that type of work environment, but I use it to show a worst case scenario.

Realistically, I probably work on average about 60 hours per week over the course of a year (which is still a lot). So on average, I would estimate that I make about $25 per hour in salary at my job. That looks a lot worse than that $37.50 I mentioned before!

Adding in Employer Benefits

One of the perks of holding down a full time job are the benefits that come along with it. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an employer is paying out an additional $14.27 per hour in benefits for my line of work.

Adding up my salary and employer paid benefits, I estimate that I am earning approximately $39.27 per hour to hold down my job.

Is $39.27 Worth My Time?

For now, I will answer – YES. I only answer yes because my family has bills to pay. Sure, we could cut back on our expenses, but that doesn’t make our medical bills go away and put food on the table. The fact is that we are a single income earning household (by choice) and currently rely on my salary.

This is not to say that I don’t plan to cut the cord from my employer some day once I have established solid alternative income streams. That has been my goal all along.

The purpose of this article is to not get you to go out and quit your job. It is only to put some perspective on your current work situation. Is an 80 hour per week job pulling in a six figure income worth it? For some it may be okay. It is just not for me!

I will never get back the time I lost over those two weeks I spent at work. I missed all those hours with my family. This is why I am so passionate about building passive income and want to share my journey with all of you!

How much do you earn from your active income job? Is it truly worth the time you spend?

Tagged as: Career and Active Income, Work Life Balance