The Hidden Cost of Your Success: Understanding Time Poverty

You’ve done everything right. You’ve climbed the career ladder, your salary has doubled (or tripled) since your twenties, and your bank balance looks healthier than ever. So why do you feel like you have less time than when you were earning £25k and living in a house share?

If this sounds familiar, you’re experiencing what researchers call “time poverty” – the peculiar modern affliction where financial success often comes at the expense of having any time to enjoy it. It’s something my wife and I have been grappling with a lot lately, the big question – is this all really worth it?

Why Earning More Often Means Feeling More Time-Poor

The cruel irony of professional success in the UK, or really the modern world, is that it often operates on a ratchet system. Each promotion brings longer hours, more responsibility, and higher stakes. Your £35k job might have been stressful, but you probably left the office at 5:30pm most days. Your £65k role? That comes with evening emails, weekend thinking, and the kind of mental load that follows you home on the Tube.

A friend of mine, a marketing director, puts it perfectly: “At 26, I earned £38k and had time to cook proper meals, see friends midweek, and read. At 35, I earn north of £80k and I’m ordering Deliveroo whilst answering emails at 9pm. I can afford better food, but I never have time to enjoy it.”

This isn’t just about longer hours. It’s about what economists call “scope creep” – the way demanding jobs expand to fill not just your working time, but your mental space too. That Sunday evening anxiety about Monday’s presentation? That’s time poverty in action.

The Psychology of Golden Handcuffs

Here’s where it gets interesting. Most people experiencing time poverty know they’re experiencing it. They’ll tell you they’d happily take a pay cut for more time. But when it comes to actually making that choice, something stops them.

The psychological barrier is incredibly real. Once you’re accustomed to a £60k lifestyle, a £45k salary doesn’t just mean less money – it feels like moving backwards. Your brain, evolved for survival, interprets any reduction in resources as a threat. Add in social expectations (what will people think?), financial commitments (that mortgage based on your current salary), and the sunk cost fallacy (all those years climbing the ladder), and you’re trapped.

This is why lifestyle inflation is so insidious. It’s not just about buying more expensive things. It’s about creating a financial floor that makes it psychologically difficult to choose time over money, even when that choice would make you happier.

In London, it seems even more poignant as the salaries go higher and the decisions seem larger, yet is it really any different? I’ve always looked back and said to myself, I don’t need to earn more than I did X years ago, that date has moved over time as my circumstances changed, but face me with the decision to ACTUALLY go back? Tough call.

Understanding Time Affluence

Time affluence is the opposite of time poverty. It’s the feeling that you have enough time to do what matters to you. Notice I said “enough” rather than “unlimited” – this isn’t about not working or having endless free time. It’s about having sufficient breathing room in your schedule to feel like you’re choosing how to spend your time, rather than having every moment dictated by external demands.

Research from UCLA and Harvard shows that people who feel time-affluent report higher life satisfaction, better relationships, and lower stress – even when controlling for income levels. The kicker? Time affluence and income have a surprisingly weak correlation once you’re above basic needs.

Calculating Your Real Hourly Rate

Before you can make better time vs money trade-offs, you need to understand what your time is actually worth. Your headline salary is misleading because it doesn’t account for all the hidden time costs of earning it.

Let’s take James, a £55k project manager in London:

Headline calculation: £55,000 ÷ (37.5 hours × 52 weeks) = £28.21 per hour

Reality check:

Actual hours including overtime: 45 hours/week
Commute: 1.5 hours/day × 5 days = 7.5 hours/week
Sunday prep/admin: 2 hours/week
Total time commitment: 54.5 hours/week

Real hourly rate: £55,000 ÷ (54.5 hours × 48 weeks*) = £21.04 per hour (*Accounting for 4 weeks holiday)

That’s a 25% difference. Factor in commuting costs (£200/month for his Oyster card), work clothes, and the premium he pays for living within commuting distance of central London, and his effective hourly rate drops further.

This isn’t to depress you – it’s to give you a sense of the real value of your time when decision-making. When you know your real hourly rate, you can make informed choices about whether that overtime is worth it, or whether paying someone £15/hour to clean your house actually makes financial sense.

Two Professionals, Two Approaches

A quick note: In this series, I’m using composite examples based on real conversations I’ve had with friends and colleagues, but I’ve changed names and details to protect privacy.

Consider these two professionals I know:

Alex (The Maximiser): £125k senior analyst in the City. Works 55 hours/week, commutes 90 minutes daily, constantly stressed but “making great money”. Spends weekends doing laundry and food shopping because there’s no time during the week. Takes 4 weeks holiday per year but checks emails throughout.

Maya (The Optimiser): £57k communications specialist, negotiated 4-day weeks after three years. Works 32 hours/week, 20-minute cycle commute, takes her full 5 weeks holiday plus occasional long weekends. Volunteers at a local charity, participates at a weekly weeknight sewing club, and is learning Spanish.

Who’s more successful? Alex earns more than double, but when you factor in their real hourly rates and life satisfaction, the picture looks different. Maya has what we might call “time affluence” – she feels like she has enough time for what matters to her.

The Diminishing Returns of Income

Here’s the uncomfortable truth most career advice ignores: beyond a certain point, additional income delivers diminishing returns on happiness, while time scarcity delivers increasing returns on misery.

We’ve all heard the research that suggests that in the UK, happiness gains from additional income level off around £60-70k for most people. Not because money doesn’t matter beyond that point, but because the basic needs have been met, the benefits are only felt for a short time and the time and stress costs of earning it often outweigh the benefits.

This doesn’t mean everyone should aim for £70k and stop. But it does suggest that the default assumption – that more money is always better – deserves questioning. I don’t know where the goalposts are in London, to have a house with a nice garden on 70k the commute would be dire so the trade-off probably pushes that number quite a bit higher vs. the national average.

Recognising the Pattern

Time poverty often creeps up gradually. You might recognise some of these patterns:

You’ve stopped doing hobbies you used to enjoy because “there’s no time” (see my last post)
You feel guilty taking your full lunch break
Your weekends are spent catching up on life admin
You fantasise about having “just one free weekend”
You’re earning more than ever but feel like you can’t afford to reduce your hours

The first step towards time affluence is recognising that this isn’t inevitable. It’s a series of choices, many of them unconscious, that have prioritised income over time. I’m talking here from the depths of personal experience! A couple of weeks ago my wife and daughter went to see the in-laws and I just took 3 days to chill out on my own “because I needed it”, I had a good time with some mates, but really? It shouldn’t be like that.

What’s Next?

Understanding time poverty is just the beginning. In the next article, we’ll dive into practical frameworks for evaluating time vs money trade-offs, including tools to help you decide when more money is worth it and when it isn’t.

The goal isn’t to convince everyone to earn less money. It’s to help you make conscious, informed decisions about how to balance time and money in a way that aligns with what you actually want from life.

Because here’s the thing: you can’t buy back time. But you might be able to buy back some of your time by making different choices about money.

Next week: Your Time vs Money Calculator – A Framework for Better Trade-offs