Work Hour Factor: think about how hard you have to work.

You need to calculate the costs of working and consuming. Wrap your mind around these few things and see things from a 'work hour' perspective.

1. TAXES - if you work, you pay taxes. If you are in the 50% tax bracket, every $1 you earn, only 50c of that can actually be spent. Half, for argument's sake, goes to the government.

If you buy that expresso for $7, you actually had to work for $14 for it. If you make $14/hour, you had to work 1 hour for that expresso.

2. COST TO GO TO WORK - it's all overhead. Like the secretaries, heat, power, etc in offices, your cost to go to work is an overhead cost. You never really see it back.

If you commute to work, you need to factor in your cost of commute to what you are actually making. Use the $14/hour as an example. If you spend $14 in parking every day (in some cities, this is possible), then you needed to work 1 hour just so that you could park. If you spend $14 for food and other things during the day, then it's another hour. If you fall within the 50% tax bracket, you actually had to work 4 hours just to park and eat. Only 4 hours remain, and two hours of that goes to government taxes.

So, really, you only had two hours worth of pay that day - a measily $28 that you could take home.

....and you can't really recover (most people can't) the lost money for parking/food, etc.

The next time you want to eat out, think about how hard you had to work to get that money, and then factor in the extra effort for taxes. Your $50meal actually costs $100, and at a rate of $14/hour, you nearly had to work 8 hours to get it.

It'll make you think twice.