Does Your Hourly Wage Really Matter?

January 22nd, 2007 • Related • Filed Under • by admin

When I was in college, I had five different jobs; it was really an interesting experience. Since three of them were campus jobs where you would work maybe five or six hours a week, it really wasn’t anything more than a full time job. It’s really quite amazing the difference in salary I received in each job. At the highest paid one, I made $16.35 an hour doing computer support, and at the lowest one, I was paid a mere $6.30 an hour for basic tutoring.

One day I decided that I was going to calculate how valuable my time was based on my average hourly wage, and it turned out to be about $10.00 an hour. Does this mean I should have quit my $6.30 an hour job, because it was not worth my time? Of course not. If I were not tutoring, then I probably would have just been sitting in my rented house watching DVDs of Scrubs. Instead I had some time to help other people and do homework when there was no one to get help; there’s not much easier than that for work!

There are a lot of suggestions and ideas about evaluating whether what you are doing is worth your effort. Basically they calculate the equivalent of your hourly wage and compare it to what you make on the job. This can either apply to saving money, such as clipping coupons, or whether you are working extra through a small business or have a part-time job.

For example, you might get paid $5.00 to do an internet survey which takes a half hour to do. This means you are making “$10.00 an hour.” But you make $15.00 an hour at your job, so it’s not worth your time, right? Sadly, these mathematicians are over simplifying the issue.

If you weren’t doing the part-time job, freelancing, clipping coupons, or filling out an online survey, what would you be doing? Most of the time you’d be wasting it at least in terms of economics by watching television, playing on the computer, or hanging out with the family. So in essence that time was originally valued at $0.00 per hour, and now it’s valued at more than that, so it instantly becomes mathematically worthwhile to do. This is not to say that you should work 24 hours a day because it makes the most sense mathematically to do, however it does make sense to use otherwise wasted time into some sort of income generation, even if it you do make a bit less than your full-time job.