Free tool · takes 30 seconds
What does an hour of your life actually cost?
Your payslip divides your pay by contracted hours. It ignores the commute, the prep, and the overtime you never billed. Put your real numbers in and see the gap.
At those numbers the job takes 572 hours a year it does not pay you for. That is about 14 full working weeks, given away annually.
The other half of the equation
Now run it backwards.
Money is only useful here if it converts back into hours. Drag the slider to see what a given month buys you.
Rung thresholds are illustrative and depend entirely on your local costs and your own rate. Rung four affects benefits and pension — that one needs an accountant, not a website.
You just finished stage one
That calculator is one chapter. There are three more.
Knowing your Number tells you which opportunities are worth your evening and which are a pay cut in disguise. It does not tell you where to find the hours, which path fits your week, or how to get a first paying customer. That is the rest of the book.
Before you get your hopes up
The number nobody advertises.
Every page selling you something in this category quotes the average. The average is dragged upward by a small tail of large earners. The median is the person in the middle — and the person in the middle is you. This book plans around the median on purpose, because a few hundred a month, converted properly, is enough to change a week.
Source: aggregated US side-income surveys, checked July 2026. Figures are published ranges describing what other people reported earning. They are not a forecast and nothing here is a promise of income.
The book
The 5-Hour Parent
- 35-page field guide — the full Trade-Back Method, all four stages
- Nine income paths — one page each, real 2026 rates, every figure sourced
- Seven printable worksheets — including the one-page plan
- The 14-day plan to a first paying customer
- Free bonus — The First Client Kit, 24 scripts for asking to be paid
Instant PDF download · 30-day refund · No subscription
Straight answers
Before you decide.
Yes. No email, no signup, nothing gated. It runs entirely in your browser and none of your numbers are sent anywhere or stored. It is chapter one of the book, given away, because it is the part that changes how you see the rest.
No. There is no income promise anywhere in it, no guaranteed figure and no screenshots. Every number is a published range with a named source at the back, and it opens by telling you the typical side income is a few hundred dollars a month.
About five hours a week, and there is a whole stage on finding them without touching dinner, bedtime, or your sleep. If your week genuinely cannot spare five hours, the book says so plainly rather than pretending otherwise.
The method works anywhere. Tax rules, reporting thresholds and some platforms are US-specific and labelled as such, and the rates quoted are US figures. Treat the numbers as a template for your own local check.