Your real hourly wage and becoming conscious of your life energy

So if money equals life energy you have a vested interest in knowing just how much of it is actually passing through your hands. Most people compute their hourly wage like this: "I work 40 hours a week, I earn $600/net a week so I trade one hour of my life energy for $15." Unfortunately it's not that simple. Have you ever thought about how much your job costs you? Yes you read that right. Your job costs you money and time to maintain. Think of all the ways you use your life energy, off the clock, that are directly related to your job. Think of all the monetary expenses that are a direct result of your job.

Examples include: Time and money spent commuting to and from work including gas, wear and tear on your car, parking fees, tolls or train, bus or carpool expenses. Time and money spent maintaining and dressing up in what ever your required work uniform might be, whether that's scrubs, hard hat and steel toed boots or tailored suits and matching shoes/purse. And the laundry, dry cleaning and ironing they require. What about time and money spent on personal grooming, cosmetics, after shave, hair style etc. Then there's the time and money spent on meals: Morning coffee and bagel, lunch break off the clock, mid afternoon espresso to keep you going, power lunches, and expensive convenience foods or restaurant meals you buy because you're too tired after a day at work to cook. Daily decompression takes its toll in money and time, too. If it takes you a while in a recliner with favorite drug of choice (alcohol, something to smoke or other recreational substances, legal or not) in hand to recover from the day you had at work, that is job related time and expense too. Escape entertainment, vacations and expensive playthings, because you've worked hard and deserve it, all consume time and money. What about job related illnesses? Union dues, child care, mandatory office parties that take place after hours, things you hire people to do for you that you could do for yourself if you didn't have that job, all add up in time and money laid out to keep that job. What other expenditures of time and money apply to your situation that aren't mentioned here?

Once you add all these extra hours to your 40 hour work week and subtract all these extra costs from your weekly salary you will come up with quite a different number for your hourly wage. You really need to sit down with pencil and paper or spread sheet and figure this out. Why? Because this is your precious life energy you are trading for these dollars. You can't make informed decisions about how to use money if you don't know how much of it you are trading each hour of your life for. This puts your paid employment into true perspective. But be prepared for a shock, you may not like that number. But that number doesn't reflect your worth as a human being. Do not mistake your job or what it earns you for your real self.

And this number is an incredibly powerful tool. Once you have it you can now understand how much of your life energy you are committing when you decide to purchase any given item. This number makes your money real for you in a way it probably hasn't been in the past. So let's say that your employment related time and expense make your equation look something like this: 40 hours + 10 hours commuting + 2 hours dressing up and primping + 5 hours off the clock lunch time + 5 hours of decompression + an average of 5 hours a week on entertainment, vacation and job related illness. That makes your work week 67 hours. Your $600/net a week salary shrinks by: $50 for commuting, $15 for costuming, $25 for meals, $15 for decompression, $55 (averaged out over the year) for entertainment, vacation and job related illness. Now you have $440 left. So $440 divided by 67 hours makes: $6.57 an hour. Your mileage may vary.

Now, are your going to be more conscious the next time you consider buying something?

I take no credit for the concepts discussed here. They are all contained in the book Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicky Robin.