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Optimal Finance Daily

3416: [Part 2] What Are The Costs Of Working? by Marjolein Dilven of Radical FIRE on Hidden Work Expenses

7 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

7 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Relationships

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Food expenses: Bringing lunch from home instead of buying office meals saves significant money. Meal prepping weekly or cooking extra dinner portions for next-day lunch reduces monthly food costs to under seventy euros.
  • Daycare calculation: Netherlands daycare costs eleven thousand euros annually per child at fifty euros daily. Working three or four days weekly instead of five reduces these expenses while maintaining household income through both partners.
  • Travel timing: Weekend trips and July-August vacations cost premium prices due to work schedules. Retiring or reducing work hours enables Tuesday travel in May at discounted rates, avoiding high-season pricing on flights and hotels.

What It Covers

Marjolein Dilven examines hidden employment expenses including food costs, daycare at fifty euros daily per child, premium weekend travel pricing, and convenience spending that reduce actual take-home income.

Key Questions Answered

  • Food expenses: Bringing lunch from home instead of buying office meals saves significant money. Meal prepping weekly or cooking extra dinner portions for next-day lunch reduces monthly food costs to under seventy euros.
  • Daycare calculation: Netherlands daycare costs eleven thousand euros annually per child at fifty euros daily. Working three or four days weekly instead of five reduces these expenses while maintaining household income through both partners.
  • Travel timing: Weekend trips and July-August vacations cost premium prices due to work schedules. Retiring or reducing work hours enables Tuesday travel in May at discounted rates, avoiding high-season pricing on flights and hotels.

Notable Moment

The author spends only eighteen hundred euros yearly on direct work costs by bringing food from home and avoiding clothing purchases, demonstrating how intentional choices minimize employment expenses.

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Episode Transcript

When you're ready to start your business, Northwest's registered agent gives you access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms, everything you need to launch and protect your business in one place. Northwest's registered agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly thirty years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in The US, with over 1,500 corporate guides, real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Plus, with Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data and handle all services in house because privacy by default is their pledge to customers. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand, and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and ten minutes. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/ofdfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/ofdfree. This is Optimal Finance Daily. What are the costs of working? Part two by Mariline Dilvin of radicalfire.com. Food at work. Food at work can be a big cost because many people spend more money on food when they're working. When you're at home, you cook most of your meals. When you're in the office, many people don't bring their lunch to work. Since meals in the office are significantly more expensive compared to making meals at home, you will spend extra money. The simplest way to reduce and avoid this cost is to bring food from home. When you're avoiding eating out, it's one of the easiest ways to reduce your food budget. You can make each meal at home. You can meal prep at the beginning of the week, having enough food to take to work every day. When you're not the meal prepping type, you can cook every evening and make some extra to eat the next day for lunch. I bring my lunch to work most days. Sometimes when I have a lunch meeting, lunch is provided, meaning that I will not spend a significant amount of money on eating food at work. Even though I bring my own lunch, I spend less than $70 per month on groceries. I enjoy eating my own meals much more than getting something from the canteen we have. Day care costs. One thing that's extremely expensive is day care costs. Whether you have a pet or a child, they may need to go to a day care. In most countries, day care is extremely expensive. In The Netherlands, day care costs around €50 per day, per child. Depending on your income, you can get a subsidy from the government. That's covering up to 90% of the day care costs. If you're both working and have a decent salary, costs may actually come down to the aforementioned €50 a day. That's €11,000 per year you're spending on one child for day care. One main way to reduce these costs is to work less as a parent. You and your partner …

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