orphanjones/Flickrp

This post is brought to you by Plumbing Q & A, where you can get all your plumbing questions answered.

When deciding whether to do a home improvement project yourself or hire someone, it’s useful to know how much money you earn in an hour. The April issue of Real Simple shares this two-part calculator.

Part 1 Income

Your monthly take-home income after taxes:

Add up all your costs associated with working.

Coffee runs with coworkers:

Commuting:

Clothing:

Dry cleaning:

Unreimbursed business meals:

Child care:

Subscriptions:

Business supplies:

Other:

Total work expenses:

Real monthly income (income minus work expenses):

Part 2 Hours

How many hours do you work in a month (40 hours per week times 4 weeks = 160 hours per month):

How many hours do you spend commuting (round trip commute x 20 days):

Additional hours spent on work (reading, continuing education, travel):

Total work hours:

Your hourly wage rate (real monthly income divided by total work hours):

Use your hourly rate to determine if it is a better idea to hire a professional or do the work yourself. But remember, just because hired help may be cheaper per hour than your hourly rate does not mean you have the money to spare!

Tagged: calculator, earnings, hourly income, hourly rate, hourly wage, how to, Personal finance, salary on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 · 2 Comments »