Two jobs & burnout calculator
Side hustles, overtime and second jobs can boost your income – but they can also wipe out your energy and increase your costs. Use the Real Cost Simulator to see whether the extra hours are actually worth it.
1. Capture your main job properly
Set up your main job first – income, hours, commute, rent, kids, debt and maintenance spending. This gives you a baseline real hourly wage and leftover per month.
2. Add extra income as "other income"
Instead of building a second full model, you can add your side income under "Other income" in the simulator. Then:
- Increase your weekly working hours to include the second job
- Add any extra commute time or costs if the side work isn't remote
- Increase "maintenance" spends if burnout makes you spend more on convenience
3. See if the extra work actually pays off
Now compare your "before" and "after":
- How much extra do you actually keep each month?
- What happens to your real hourly rate when you add those hours?
- Are you trading $X of real money per hour for sleep, health and family time?
Sometimes the answer is "yes, this pushes me ahead". Sometimes it's "I'm working myself into the ground for very little gain" – and that's useful to see clearly.