Work From Home Savings Calculator

Add up commute, parking, lunch, and clothing. Subtract higher home costs. See your annual savings, hours of life reclaimed, and the salary raise you'd need to break even on returning to the office.

Your commute

Days/week in office

Round-trip miles

Round-trip minutes

Cost per mile

Daily costs at the office

Per office day. We multiply by your days per week × 50 working weeks.

Parking + tolls

Lunch out

Coffee/snacks

Hourly wage

Include reclaimed commute time as money (at hourly wage)

More expenses (transit, wardrobe, second car, childcare)

Public transit (per month)

Wardrobe (per year)

Dry cleaning (per year)

Childcare savings (per year)

Most employers don't allow caring for kids while working - use only if you're shifting to part-time/after-school.

Avoid a second household vehicle Two-earner households often need a second car for the commute. AAA's 2025 average all-in cost is $11,577/year.

Honest extras (added home costs of working remote)

Higher home utilities (per month)

Higher home groceries (per month)

Coworking space (per month)

Home office setup (one time, amortized over 3 yrs)

Tax rate (for the breakeven raise calculation)

Combined marginal tax rate (%)

Federal + state + FICA. Used to gross up the breakeven raise figure below.

Your annual savings

Per month

Over 5 years

Hours reclaimed/yr

CO₂ avoided/yr

If RTO is on the table

You'd need a - raise to break even on returning to the office (after taxes).

Show every line of the math

Savings (added to total)

Added home costs (subtracted)

Defaults sourced from AAA Your Driving Costs 2025 ($11,577/yr per car), IRS 2026 standard mileage (72.5¢/mi), EPA passenger vehicle CO₂ (400 g/mi), Bloom et al. NBER w30866 (72 min/day commute reclaimed), and Owl Labs State of Hybrid Work 2025. Edit any input to match your situation - all numbers update live.

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How much can you really save working from home?

Recent research puts average remote-worker savings between $4,000 and $12,000 per year, with FlexJobs citing about $6,000 as the median for full time remote workers. The variation depends almost entirely on three things: how far you commute, what you spend on lunch and parking, and whether your household can drop a vehicle.

The four big levers

Vehicle ownership. AAA's 2025 Your Driving Costs report puts the average new car at $11,577 per year all in (fuel, depreciation, insurance, maintenance, finance). Eliminating one car is the single biggest savings move available.
Per-mile driving. The IRS 2026 standard mileage rate is 72.5 cents per mile - the all-in cost of running a car for that distance. A 26 mile round-trip commute, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year is 6,500 miles, or about $4,712 per year.
Lunch out. Owl Labs measured $18 to $21 per office day in 2024 and 2025. Five days a week of restaurant lunch is $4,500 to $5,250 per year.
Reclaimed time. Bloom et al. (NBER w30866) found remote workers gain 72 minutes per day on average. About 40 percent goes back into paid work, 34 percent to leisure, 11 percent to caregiving. That's 5+ weeks of recovered life every year for a typical commuter.

The honest counter-side

Working from home isn't free. Higher home utility bills (heating/cooling/electricity), larger grocery bills (you eat at home now), the cost of a coworking day-pass if you need to escape, and the amortized one-time setup all eat into the savings. The calculator subtracts these so the headline number is honest. For most people, the office costs still win by 3 to 10x - but it's worth seeing the full picture.

Using the breakeven raise number

If your employer is pushing return to office, the breakeven raise tells you how much extra annual salary you'd need to net out the same amount of money after returning. Saving $7,000 working from home with a 30% combined marginal rate means you'd need a $10,000 gross raise to be financially neutral. That's a useful number to bring to a 1:1 about RTO mandates.

Frequently asked questions

How much money do you save working from home on average?

Studies put it between $4,000 and $12,000 per year for full-time remote workers, with FlexJobs citing about $6,000 as the median. The big drivers are commute fuel and vehicle wear (AAA pegs the average car at $11,577 per year), lunch out (Owl Labs measures $18 to $21 per office day), parking, and the value of reclaimed time. Hybrid workers save proportionally less, scaled by how many days a week they still commute.

Where does the per-mile commute cost come from?

The IRS 2026 standard mileage rate is 72.5 cents per mile, which bundles fuel, depreciation, insurance, maintenance, and finance into a single number. AAA's Your Driving Costs 2025 report breaks it out further: about 13 cents per mile for fuel, with the remaining ~60 cents covering everything else. The calculator uses 72.5 cents per mile as the default, with an EV option at 12 cents per mile for fuel-only.

Is the time-savings number real money?

Sometimes. The Bloom et al. NBER study found remote workers reclaim 72 minutes per day on average. About 40 percent of that goes to extra paid work (so it really is income), 34 percent to leisure, and 11 percent to caregiving. The calculator shows the hours separately and lets you toggle whether to monetize them at your hourly wage.

What about higher home utility bills and groceries?

Yes - going remote shifts some costs from the office to your house: electricity, heating/cooling, internet, snacks. The calculator subtracts your higher home costs from the office savings so the net number is honest. Defaults assume an extra ~$40 per month in utilities and ~$75 per month in groceries; adjust to your situation.

Why does the calculator ask about a second car?

Because eliminating a vehicle is the single biggest savings lever for two-earner households. AAA puts a typical second car at $11,577 per year all-in. If you can avoid buying or keeping one because both partners now work from home, that one toggle moves the answer more than every other input combined.

What is the breakeven raise number?

It's how much extra salary an employer would have to pay to make returning to the office financially neutral. If you save $7,000 per year working from home and your combined marginal tax rate is 30 percent, you'd need a $10,000 raise (gross) to take home the same after taxes. Useful when negotiating return to office mandates.

How accurate is this?

The math is correct within the inputs you provide. Defaults are pulled from AAA Your Driving Costs 2025, IRS 2026 standard mileage, EPA passenger-vehicle CO2 data, US Census ACS commuting data, and Owl Labs / Bloom labor research. Override anything that doesn't match your actual spending. Treat the result as a planning estimate, not a tax filing.

Self-employed?

Home Office Tax Deduction

Form 8829 simplified vs actual, side by side.

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