About

Every purchase has a hidden cost measured not in currency but in irreplaceable working hours. This converter translates any price tag into the labor time required to earn that amount, factoring in your gross hourly wage w, effective tax rate t, and weekly work schedule. A $50 dinner at a net wage of $20/hr costs 2.5 hours of your finite life. Misjudging this relationship leads to chronic overspending. The tool handles 60+ global currencies and decomposes results into years, months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes based on your actual work calendar.

Note: this tool approximates post-tax earnings using a flat effective rate. Progressive tax brackets, employer benefits, commute costs, and unpaid overtime are not modeled. For salaried workers, divide annual gross by total annual hours worked to get a realistic w. Pro tip: include your daily commute time in "hours per day" for a more honest picture of what your time truly costs.

Formulas

The core conversion divides the item price by your net hourly wage to yield total working hours required.

H = Pw × (1 − t100)

Where H = total hours of work, P = price of the item in your currency, w = gross hourly wage, and t = effective tax rate in %.

The result H is then decomposed into human-readable units using your work schedule parameters:

h_day = hours per workday
d_week = workdays per week
w_year = working weeks per year

H_year = h_day × d_week × w_year
years = floor(H ÷ H_year)
weeks = floor(remainder ÷ (h_day × d_week))
days = floor(remainder ÷ h_day)
minutes = round(fractional hours × 60)

Reference Data

Country	Currency	Symbol	Median Hourly Wage (Gross)	Avg. Tax Rate	Net Hourly	Std. Work Hours/Week
United States	USD	$	29.76	22%	23.21	40
United Kingdom	GBP	£	17.40	20%	13.92	37.5
Germany	EUR	€	22.50	30%	15.75	38
France	EUR	€	18.80	25%	14.10	35
Canada	CAD	$	27.50	22%	21.45	40
Australia	AUD	$	35.00	24%	26.60	38
Japan	JPY	¥	1850	20%	1480	40
Switzerland	CHF	CHF	42.00	12%	36.96	42
Netherlands	EUR	€	21.00	37%	13.23	36
Sweden	SEK	kr	195	32%	132.60	40
Norway	NOK	kr	280	28%	201.60	37.5
South Korea	KRW	₩	13500	15%	11475	40
India	INR	₹	180	10%	162	48
Brazil	BRL	R$	15.50	15%	13.18	44
Mexico	MXN	$	65.00	16%	54.60	48
Singapore	SGD	$	18.50	7%	17.21	44
New Zealand	NZD	$	29.00	20%	23.20	40
Denmark	DKK	kr	220	38%	136.40	37
Poland	PLN	zł	38.00	17%	31.54	40
U.S. Federal Minimum	USD	$	7.25	12%	6.38	40

Frequently Asked Questions

Enter your gross (pre-tax) hourly wage and set the effective tax rate separately. The tool computes net wage as w × (1 − t/100). If you already know your net wage, enter it directly and set the tax rate to 0%.

Divide your annual gross salary by total working hours per year. For a standard U.S. schedule: 2080 hours (40 hr/week × 52 weeks). For a more accurate figure, subtract vacation weeks. Example: &dollar;60,000 ÷ 2080 = &dollar;28.85/hr.

No. The tool uses a flat hourly rate. If you regularly work overtime at 1.5× pay, compute a blended rate: (regular hours × regular rate + OT hours × OT rate) ÷ total hours. Enter that blended rate.

Adding 1 hour of daily commute to an 8-hour workday increases your effective time-per-dollar by 12.5%. You earn the same wage but spend 9 hours instead of 8. The tool lets you set hours per day to 9 to reflect this reality, which reduces your effective hourly rate and increases the time cost of every purchase.

Enter your wage in your local currency. Then enter prices in the same currency. The tool does not perform live currency exchange. Convert foreign prices to your currency first using a separate converter, then input the local-currency equivalent here.

Hours are decomposed into whole workdays (based on your hours-per-day setting), then remaining whole hours, then minutes (rounded to the nearest minute). For example, 10.75 hours at 8 hr/day yields 1 day, 2 hours, 45 minutes.

A price of 0 returns 0 hours. Negative prices are rejected with a validation error. A wage of 0 or negative is also rejected since division by zero is undefined.