{"id":7702,"date":"2010-01-11T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=7702"},"modified":"2020-12-12T21:58:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T05:58:34","slug":"9-sneaky-expenses-that-eat-away-at-your-income","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/9-sneaky-expenses-that-eat-away-at-your-income\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Sneaky Expenses That Eat Away at Your Income"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Few concepts have had as great an impact on my family’s financial decision-making as learning how to calculate our real hourly wage<\/a>. The concept was introduced by (or at least popularized by) the amazing book, Your Money or Your Life<\/b><\/i><\/a>.\u00a0This book has had a dramatic influence over our financial turn-around (just as it did for J.D.).<\/p>\n

The authors focus early in the book on ensuring that readers are aware of the true costs associated with their jobs and incomes \u2014 including accounting for the time<\/em> we spend on activities that are often forgotten.<\/p>\n

When Courtney and I first sat down to figure out just how many different expenses were associated with our income opportunities, it was an eye-opening experience.\u00a0It unveiled a new layer of consciousness towards both our work and our spending. In one case we shifted from, “I make $42,000 per year<\/em>” to “That really only results in $22,000 net after all<\/strong> expenses are considered.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The hardest part of figuring your real hourly wage is accounting for those sneaky <\/em>costs (in both time and money<\/a>) that eat away at your income streams. Your Money or Your Life<\/i> does a great job of listing sample expenses, from which we adapted a customized list that I still keep updated to compare opportunities.<\/p>\n

Here are the adjusted categories we use to figure our own real hourly wages:<\/p>\n