How much I have actually worked for my entire career

HOW MUCH HAVE YOU WORKED?

This was a question that needed a bit more research for an answer, I had to go back into my budgets from previous years (I use this Budgeting Tool) and try to remember the days I worked and how much I made.

Calculation notes

• I only calculated business days worked (e.g. 5 days a week not 7)
• I put the net income earned (after taxes, as I do my own salary so I know)
• I work 8 hours per business day, 40 hours a week (very few clients say 35 hours a week to account for lunch)

TOTAL INCOME = $950,520.27

If we consider my net worth hovering around $500,000, it means I saved at least 50% of my income, not to mention having eliminated $60,000 of debt (net) in 18 months.

Taking into account my debt, I have a savings ratio of 58.9%.

Sweet! 🙂 I really do live on less than 50% of my income then…

TOTAL INCOME AS AN EMPLOYEE ONLY = $151,666.66

I worked a little over 2 years for this amount.

TOTAL INCOME AS A FREELANCER ONLY = $798,853.61

If you take out my employee years, my total net income as just a freelancer is almost $800,000 which sounds correct. I wasn’t an employee long.

In fact, I’m probably unemployable right now. I’d quit after a day of dealing with a manager.

TOTAL DAYS WORKED = 1524

In total, over my entire career (about 2520 working days) this is how much I have worked at my day job.

Approximately 6 years, for a rate of about 60%. It is a lot better than I expected!

I thought my ratio was terrible (below 50% of my entire career), and then I realized I worked quite a lot in 2015.

TOTAL DAYS WORKED AS AN EMPLOYEE ONLY = 638

Kind of amazing to me that I worked 638 days as an employee, seems like such a long time.

TOTAL DAYS WORKED AS A FREELANCER ONLY = 886

The days I worked as an employee are almost as much as a freelancer only (886 days), and yet my income as a freelancer was $798,853.61 and as an employee it was $151,666.66.

RATES EARNED PER DAY

Employee = 237.72 earned per day

Freelancer = $901.64 earned per day

Being a freelancer has not only given me more time off (40% of that time), but my income has increased 3.79X as well.

I work much less and I make much more.

How ideal.

INCOME EARNED OVER THE YEARS

I obviously like to work and then chill out for at least a year afterwards.

I guess my partner was right. 🙂 He said I can’t seem to stay at work for very long. LOL.

I feel like I’m semi-retired, which is the better way to describe my working life. Why wait until you’re 65, I say!? 🙂

I think I prefer this kind of lifestyle. I have lower (relative) stress, and the only stress I get now is mostly from my toddler, but that time will pass eventually.

I’d rather work less and then just live off the money.. work some more.. then live.

AVERAGE TOTAL NET SALARY = $86,410.93

If we don’t take into account actual days worked and all that time off, my average salary has been around $86,410.93 over the years.

AVERAGE NET SALARY PER YEAR BASED ON ACTUAL WORKING DAYS = $157,172.64

When we take a look at my salary average per year based on a division of ACTUAL days worked, it jumps up to almost double, which makes sense as I have only worked 50% of the time.

AVERAGE NET SALARY PER YEAR AFTER BEING A FREELANCER BASED ON ACTUAL WORKING DAYS = $252,213.44

Taking out my (few) employee years, my net salary increases to a little over a quarter of a million, taking into account actual days worked.

This sounds about in line because my rate is around $125 an hour, so that’s $250,000 a year.

AVERAGE $ EARNED PER DAY = $623.70

This is how much I earned on average per day worked. Some days were better than others.

BEST EARNINGS PER DAY

$2604.21 for 50 days

This was in 2012, I worked around 10 weeks and made $130,210.69. This is my 2012 budget roundup for the year.

BEST EARNINGS PER DAY AS AN EMPLOYEE

$257.94 for 252 days

This was the year before I quit and became a freelancer. I quadrupled my income in literally 3 days. It was the most exciting and scariest time of my life because I quit without a single safety net.

WORST EARNINGS PER DAY BUT I DIDN’T WORK AT ALL

$31.33 for 0 days

I am not sure if this one counts because while I made $11,433.82 in my net worth in 2013, I didn’t work at all that year.

WORST EARNINGS PER DAY IF I WORKED THAT YEAR

$193.45 for 224 days

This was my first year out of college, and I was an employee. Obviously.

WORST EARNINGS PER DAY AS A FREELANCER

$216.30 for 66 days

This was in 2014. I made about $78,951 but worked 66 days.

That was a terrible year because I had to pay for my own travel & hotel expenses out of pocket of my earnings as I wasn’t local to the project.

Love these kinds of posts? Gen Y did hers as well.