WageGauge

Meet WageGauge — the Chrome extension that turns every price you see online into the most human metric of all: time. Instead of asking “Can I afford £100?”, you’ll instinctively see “£100 ≈ 2 hours 45 minutes of your life (based on your wage).” WageGauge overlays time-based price tags right on the web pages you already use, adding a subtle, accessible tooltip when you hover over currency values. It’s a tiny shift in perspective that creates a huge boost in clarity, helping you make smarter decisions about spending, saving, and prioritizing what truly matters. WageGauge is designed for anyone who cares about personal finance, budgeting, and productivity — students stretching a loan, freelancers juggling invoices, full-time employees tracking salary against spending, and savvy shoppers who want to measure opportunity cost in a natural, intuitive way. If you’ve ever wondered “How many hours of work is this worth?” while browsing an online shop, compared subscription prices, or weighed a big-ticket purchase, WageGauge puts the answer a hover away. # Why time-based prices? Money is abstract. Time is personal. When you convert the cost of goods and services into “hours and minutes of your life,” priorities snap into focus. £12 a month might not feel like much until you see that it’s 18 minutes of your working day — every month, indefinitely. A £799 laptop becomes “a week and a bit of work.” A one-off £35 fee turns into “about an hour.” With WageGauge on your side, you replace guesswork with a consistent measure tied to your real wage, salary, or day rate. # How it works 1. Set your wage: Enter your hourly wage, salary, day rate, or contract rate in the extension’s options. Prefer to think annually? Just provide your yearly salary — WageGauge converts it to an hourly figure using your chosen assumptions (working days per week, hours per day, holidays). 2. Hover any price: As you browse, WageGauge detects currency values like £, \$, €, ¥, and more across shopping sites, travel portals, subscription pages, donation forms, and price tables. 3. See the time cost: Move your cursor over a price and a lightweight tooltip shows the “hours\:minutes” equivalent — for example, “£100 ≈ 2h 45m of your time based on wage.” 4. Adjust to your reality (optional): Fine-tune for net pay vs. gross pay, average weekly hours, unpaid breaks, overtime assumptions, or effective take-home after taxes and pension contributions if you want a more realistic “life hours” figure. # Natural, focused, and privacy-conscious WageGauge is purpose-built to be helpful without getting in your way. The tooltip only appears when you hover over a currency amount, keeping pages clean and readable. The extension is designed for local calculation in your browser, and the wage you enter is for your eyes and your device. There’s no account to create, and no new dashboards to learn — just a clear time cost when and where you need it most. # Key features * **Instant “hours of your life” tooltips** on hover for prices in GBP (£), USD (\$), EUR (€), and many other common currencies. * **Configurable wage inputs:** hourly wage, yearly salary, day rate, or freelance rate. * **Flexible assumptions:** working days per week, hours per day, paid/unpaid breaks, weeks of holiday, and overtime rules so your time price matches your reality. * **Gross vs. net perspective:** choose whether to calculate using your gross wage or an estimate of take-home pay to reflect true “life hours.” * **Precision you can feel:** round to hours and minutes, show seconds for micro-prices if desired, or keep it simple and rounded. * **Per-site controls:** pause on certain domains, create allowlists/denylists, and tailor matching sensitivity for sites with unusual layouts. * **Lightweight design:** fast, unobtrusive, and keyboard-friendly. * **Accessibility-aware:** readable contrast, screen-reader-friendly labels, and optional reduced motion. * **International formatting:** handles typical thousands separators and localized currency formats. * **Smart detection:** matches prices in product grids, checkout pages, comparison tables, receipts, and marketing pages. * **Simple toggles:** enable/disable with one click, or use a shortcut to reveal/hide time tooltips. # Practical benefits for everyday browsing * **Personal finance clarity:** Track the real cost of impulse buys, recurring subscriptions, “limited-time offers,” and upsells. * **Budgeting made simple:** See your budget categories in life hours — groceries per week, transport per month, entertainment per quarter. * **Frugal shopping without spreadsheets:** Compare items by how many working hours they represent, not just by sticker price. * **Work–life balance awareness:** Internalize opportunity cost: “Is this worth three hours of my Friday?” * **Minimal mental math:** The extension does the conversion in the background every time, consistently and accurately. * **Decision support for big purchases:** The jump from “£1,299” to “about two weeks of work” adds the context you need to say yes, wait, or pass. * **Subscription sanity checks:** That “only £7.99/mo” is about 12 minutes each month; over a year that’s about 2.5 hours. Now you can feel the real commitment. * **Freelancer & contractor focus:** Calibrate to your billable rate to quickly judge tools, SaaS plans, and gear by time-to-earn. * **Students & early-career users:** Connect part-time wages to online shopping and campus costs in an intuitive, motivational way. # Built for Chrome, built for speed WageGauge is a true Chrome extension optimized for performance. It hooks lightly into pages to detect currency values, avoiding heavy scripts that slow browsing or clutter the UI. The result is a responsive, modern experience that respects your attention: no pop-ups, no nag screens, just the information you asked for — exactly when you ask for it, on hover. # Customize it to match your life * **Currency & locale:** Use your native currency and number for…