An eye opener

I sat down one day recently and looked at what I thought my wages were.  About 6 months ago I took a new job in the same facility I was already working in, as a nurse manager.  WOW I thought, not only do I get to work 8 hours a day monday - friday, but I also get a raise.  What could be better right?
Wrong.
I ended up working 12-16 hours a day with a commute of an hour each way. The stress of the job was horrendous. I hated every minute of it. I felt like my whole life revolved around the job.  I would get up early in the morning (4:00) run around like crazy taking care of my dogs (more about that latter), starting laundry, and getting myself ready for work. Never any breakfast. My substitute was a $5.50 cup of coffee from the coffee place down the road before I hit the highway on the way to work.
An hour drive into work, since I live in a semi rural area, and then work.  I would run and hurry and not stop all day, except for the 10 minutes to swallow the fast food lunch sometime during the day, trying to keep up with the work load and there was always some one else that needed something, or some other problem to solve.  It was never finished. I had to leave every day without feeling like I got my job done to my satisfaction, with the feeling of doom hanging over my head that I would have to return the next day and pick up where I had not finished. For me that is awful. I hate feeling like I worked all day and didn't do anything. Why bother trying so hard?
Ok so any way.....about the money.
I sat down and started talking this out.
My basic wages $30/hour for 40 hours a week. (Don't get paid for overtime at this job)
That comes to a grand total of $4800  sounds like a lot right?  well where is all that money?  It certainly doesn't feel like I got paid that much.
My pay stub indicated that some of that went to taxes.  A lot of it in fact.  I calculated it out to be an average of 30% out of every one of my checks.
So that left me with $3360 take home. Still not that bad right? at least not in the poverty level. But I still felt as though I was spending more and more every month and not able to get ahead. so I investigated further and started deducting other things out of my "take home wage" that had become expenses in order to make that money.
Clothing- I'm definitely not a shopper and hate buying clothes, but I still had to dress in a manor that fit my job. My average clothing cost over the last year was a surprising $125 a month. 
Transportation-Thank goodness I don't have a car payment ($250-400)!  but gas cost for my mom van to take me to work every week came to about $750 a month according to my debits on my bank statement. That's just to get to work....I don't go anywhere else like vacationing since I'm to tired. Add on the oil changes at $200 + every 4 months and you can add $50 to that monthly total. So $800 a month minimum for transportation. 
Add the $5.50 cup of coffee in the am=27.50
$5-7 for that fast food lunch. =$25-35
how about eating out for dinner on the way home cause I'm to tired to fix food or shop after work?
I always have my sig other with me but just counting my wage....$15-20 x 3 nights a week=$45-60
Then there is the expense of actually eating at home since we rely so much on convience foods we all know it is more expensive (and less healthy) to buy it made for us instead of making it ourselves.  I haven't figured up the difference for that yet but I will let you know.  I can tell you that instead of paying $1200 or more to buy groceries this past month, I have only spent about $300 since I'm at home and can cook now. So I will call my estimate $900 a month for convenience food since this is the difference I have unofficially seen so far. 
If you are doing this exercise yourself you could also add on the cost of things like a house keeper or other services you pay for because you are to tired or have no time to do it yourselves.
so to recap:
my wages $4800- 30%=$3360
transportation                    -800
clothing                             -125
coffee                                -110
fast food lunch                  -140
dinner out 3 x a week       -240
convience food                 -900
leaving me with a total wage of $1185 a month.

Wow! really?  how much is that an hour? 
If you figure my time getting ready for work and transportation back and forth that's at least 15 hours a day x 5 days a week x 4 weeks a month=300 hours a month minimum

$1185/300= 3.95   I have been slaving away working at a job I hate for $3.95 an hour! That's disgusting. My time and knowledge is worth more than that.