Then what?
The calculators stop where the hard part begins. You hit the number, and the freedom arrives empty-handed: no plan, no mission, just time. So this is a smaller, honest tool for after the exit: a look at what you actually want the freedom for.
Explain it like I’m five
One day the pot pays for everything, and nobody tells you what to do all day anymore. That sounds like the prize. It’s also the hard part. This page shows how much time you’d really get back, and the questions worth answering before that day comes, not after.
New to all of it? This idea is stop 10 of Start from zero: ten short lessons that assume nothing.
What you’d get back
Roughly what work takes from your year: the hours that would suddenly be yours. Not to guilt the job: to make the emptiness concrete, because an empty calendar is exactly what nobody warns you about.
Back in your hands, every year
2,070 hours
About 259 working days that would suddenly be yours: enough for roughly 207 books, or a language 6.9× over to the point you could get by.
Or enough to fill with nothing at all, if you don’t bring a reason. Which is the whole trap.
The questions worth answering first
No sign-ups, nothing saved, nothing sold: these don’t go anywhere. That’s the point. Answer them before the money, not after.
What would you do with a free Tuesday — not a holiday, an ordinary Tuesday?
What did you stop doing that you’d start again tomorrow?
Who would you see more of, if the week were yours to spend?
What’s the hard thing you’d choose, now that nobody’s setting the challenges?
The sums, in the open: 46 working weeks a year, 8-hour days, a book at roughly 10 hours, getting by in a new language at roughly 300. Round numbers: the point is the shape of the time, not the cent of it. Nothing here is saved or sent anywhere.
Common questions
- Where’s the money number?
- There isn’t one: this is the tool for after the money’s sorted. Every other calculator here answers “when can I stop?”. This one asks the harder question nobody budgets for: what will you actually do with the time?
- How could I read that many books, or learn a language that fast?
- Those are just the hours made concrete: a book counted at about ten hours, a language at the few hundred it takes to get by. They’re illustrations of how much time you’d get back, not targets or promises.
- Is all that reclaimed time really free?
- It’s the work-and-commute block you’d hand back if you stopped entirely: the raw hours, before life’s admin takes its cut. The point isn’t the exact figure; it’s realising how big the block is, and that it arrives empty unless you’ve thought about filling it.
Nothing here is financial, investment, medical or retirement advice: it’s arithmetic and education. The calculators use the numbers you enter, The Exit Rehearsal compares your own Plan and Reality without interpreting either, and The Spare Key prices the fallback you enter without recommending one. Some tools remember work in the browser, some can place a scenario in the page address, and the Rehearsal and the Spare Key stay in this browser unless you print them, download them, or keep them in your account. Each tool tells you what it keeps and where. Decisions about your money are yours, ideally with a licensed adviser. I’m happily not one.
Bring me a challenge.
The Exit Audit, then ninety minutes: a straight verdict, real alternatives with their pros and cons, and your first move. If you want someone to nod along, I’m the wrong person to pay.