[damascus]

I just moved out of a metro area to about 20 miles out of town and have been running these numbers. How you calculate time is something few people talk about but seems incredibly relevant to this calculation.

I'm an independent hourly consultant so my time has a literal dollar rate, but only if I would be working vs whatever activity is in question.

Assuming I 1: have work available I can contribute quality work to in the time allotted and 2: that I actually would be doing that work in this time slot are two things that rarely match up with when I'm doing personal activities that require transit. One obvious exception is going to or from a client site during the workweek, but with a phone hotspot I can start billing on the bus. Something I can't do driving.

If 1 and 2 above are not both true then my hourly rate is not at all my billed rate and is instead some subjective measure of value. I have yet to determine if that measure of value is best expressed in dollars. So far I'm beginning to think it isn't. Instead, reversed feels better. "Is it worth X dollars to not have to carry my groceries home on a bus?"

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

100% agree, that's more or less how I ended up evaluating my time