About

Hours Not Dollars is a small collection of calculators about money and time — free, with no ads and no account. The idea behind it is simple: most spending decisions are easier once you stop counting dollars and start counting the hours of life those dollars cost. So the tools put a number on it — what an hour of your work is really worth, what a purchase or a habit adds up to, what a loan truly costs — with the math shown and the sources in plain sight.

How the calculations work

Every calculator runs on a small, tested math engine: the same vetted functions power the whole site, each covered by automated tests, so the numbers are consistent from page to page. Nothing is a black box — each tool explains its formula and walks through a worked example, and the figures recompute live from the inputs you enter.

Where a page leans on outside facts — a typical market return, an average cost, a rule of thumb like the 4% withdrawal rate — it cites a real, current source rather than a number invented for effect. Those sources are authorities such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Reserve, and peer-reviewed research, linked at the foot of each page so you can check them yourself.

The role of AI

The site is built with the help of AI language models. That isn't something to hide — it's part of what makes it possible: the AI helps cross-check sources systematically, assemble the calculators from primary documents, and keep up a steady pace of one careful page at a time.

The judgment, though, stays human. Every page is reviewed and approved before it goes live — the math, the sources, the honesty of the wording. The AI is the research and building tool; the final call is a person's.

Limits and a disclaimer

The calculations are estimates. They are not financial, tax, or legal advice, and shouldn't be used as a substitute for it. Markets move, rules change, and despite the care taken with sources there can be errors or figures not yet updated. Treat the results as a way to reason about a decision, not a guarantee — and for anything that matters, check the official sources and talk to a qualified professional. Returns and rates used in examples are assumptions, not promises.

Hours Not Dollars is an independent project, made to be useful rather than to sell you anything.