One-Time Purchase
Recurring Habit
Reframe a price tag into the only currency that truly matters: your time.
We instinctively think in dollars, but our most finite resource is time. Reframing a purchase in terms of the hours of your life required to earn it reveals its true cost. This simple shift in perspective from price tag to life cost empowers you to make more mindful financial decisions. Is that purchase really worth it?
The True Cost Calculator determines the 'life cost' of an item by converting its price into the number of hours you must work to earn that amount. It calculates your hourly wage based on your income and then divides the item's cost by this rate to reveal the total work hours required.
Opportunity cost is the potential gain you miss out on when choosing one alternative over another. Our calculator visualizes this by showing what the money for a purchase could grow into if it were invested in the stock market instead, highlighting the potential future wealth you are trading for the item today.
While a single coffee seems cheap, our 'Cost of Habits' mode shows how recurring expenses add up. A $5 daily coffee can cost over 100 hours of work per year and result in a missed investment opportunity of tens of thousands of dollars over the long term, making it a surprisingly expensive habit.