The most useful thing I ever did for my financial life was calculate my hourly rate and apply it consistently.

My current salary translates to roughly $35/hour after tax. That means every expense decision is also a time decision: how many hours of work does this cost?

A $350 impulse purchase: 10 hours of work. Is it worth 10 hours of my life? Sometimes yes — I buy it. Often no — I wait and usually don't.

A $50/month subscription I rarely use: 1.4 hours of work per month, or about 17 hours per year. That's almost half a workweek annually. Worth it? Often not.

This mental conversion doesn't mean being stingy with everything. It means the comparison is more honest: not 'is this expensive?' but 'is this worth X hours of my working life?' The answer is sometimes enthusiastically yes. It's more often no than I expected.