Salary page

$45,000 a year is not $21.63 an hour.

Dividing by 2,080 assumes a 40-hour week and a 52-week year. At 45 hours and 50 weeks, $45,000 is $20.00 before tax. After a 25% planning load, the kept hour is $15.00. Change the assumptions. The page will not argue with you.

Annual salary Real hours per week, including the ones that “don’t count” Weeks you actually work Combined tax load, percent Round-trip commute, minutes Commute days per week Meeting hours per week

—Kept hour, after tax

—Kept hour after commute is counted as work

—Gross hourly, before tax

—Evening hours already sold (over 40 / week)

—Commute, valued at your kept hour

—Meetings, valued at your kept hour, per year

—Take-home, same tax load

The calculator stays free. The $39 sheet is a human check of the same numbers, not a locked file.

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Same salary, different weeks

Week	Gross hourly	Kept hour at 25%	Evenings sold / year
35 h/week	$25.71	$19.29	0 h
40 h/week	$22.50	$16.88	0 h
45 h/week	$20.00	$15.00	250 h
50 h/week	$18.00	$13.50	500 h
55 h/week	$16.36	$12.27	750 h
60 h/week	$15.00	$11.25	1000 h

What to do with $45,000

If an offer matches this salary and adds hours, the kept hour is the comparison, not the title. A $45,000 job at 55 hours pays less per kept hour than a lower salary at 40, once tax is the same. Run both offers in the calculator and keep the higher hour.

Evenings already sold are the hours above 40, times weeks worked. They are not a moral score. They are the number you can put next to a hobby, a child, or a second skill that might raise the next salary without raising the week.