Trade Schools, Colleges and Universities
Join Over 1.5 Million People We've Introduced to Awesome Schools Since 2001
Trade Schools, Colleges and Universities
Join Over 1.5 Million People We've Introduced to Awesome Schools Since 2001
Discover exactly how much your ideal lifestyle costs per month—and find the real-world careers that actually pay enough to fund it.
Choosing a career based purely on a job title is a trap. If your goal is to buy a house, raise a family, or travel, your career needs to mathematically support that lifestyle. The Price Your Life calculator bridges the gap between your baseline living expenses and the exact gross salary required to fund them.
A $60,000 salary doesn't put $60,000 in your pocket. After accounting for typical federal taxes, state taxes, and payroll deductions, your net take-home pay is significantly lower. Our algorithm takes your monthly lifestyle costs—housing, transportation, food, and fun—adjusts for local cost of living (COL), and reverse-engineers the gross income you actually need to survive without drowning in debt.
We don't deal in hypothetical wealth. The career matches generated by this tool rely on 2024 median annual wage data published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). By comparing your required gross income against verified occupational data, you get a realistic snapshot of which trade, technical, or healthcare careers actually fit your financial goals.
Starting salaries vary wildly by region and specialty. For example, entry-level electricians and HVAC technicians frequently start between $40,000 and $45,000 annually, scaling quickly as they complete apprenticeships and earn state licensure. Heavy industrial roles like Elevator Technicians or Power Line Workers often clear $60,000+ in their first few years.
A $70,000 salary in rural Ohio offers a completely different lifestyle than $70,000 in Seattle. High-cost areas increase your housing, food, and transportation baselines. The tool's COL multiplier adjusts your net requirement to reflect the premium of living in major metropolitan hubs.