THE PROPER WAY TO BE FINICIALY STABLE

Whether you're a fastidious budgeter or you play fast and loose with your finances, we've all been tempted to splurge on an unwise purchase here and there. There's no shame in doing it every once in a while, but those purchases can add up without you even realizing it — and take money away from more worthwhile investments. In their bestselling book "Your Money or Your Life," authors Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez offer an easy way to avoid frivolous spending: just think of your money as hours of your life.
Here's how it works: Say you make $50,000 a year for your full-time, 40-hour-a-week job. Calculate your monthly income after taxes: $3,500, more or less. That makes your hourly wage a little less than $22.

Next, add up all the work-related expenses you have. That includes the obvious things like office attire, commuting costs, work lunches, and dry cleaning, but also the less obvious costs that come from being tied up at work all day: daycare, housecleaning, and/or the self-care activities that help you de-stress after work.
After that, add up all the hours you spend on work when you're not at work. Commute time? Write it down. Answering emails after-hours? That too. Even the time you need to unwind when you get home counts — after all, if you weren't working, you wouldn't need to unwind.
Finally, crunch the numbers. Subtract your monthly work-related expenses from your monthly wages, and add your non-work work hours to your actual work hours. Then divide your "real" wages by your "real" work hours. Let's say you, hypothetical $50K-a-year worker, spend $1,500 a month on work-related expenses and 40 hours of work-related time outside of work. That makes your "real" hourly wage $10.

Ouch, right? Well, it's not all bad. Knowing that number could be the key to getting your spending under control.