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Career Break Even

Free Career Break Even calculator with clear step-by-step results.

About Career Break Even

A career break costs forgone earnings plus whatever you pay to retrain, offset by any income you keep earning. Dividing that total by the annual salary uplift afterwards gives the number of months of the new job needed before you are financially back where you started.

Formulas

Cost of the break

Cost = (salary / 12 - side income) x months + retraining cost

Break-even

Months = cost / (new salary - old salary) x 12

Worked example

With the default values below, Career Break Even returns Months of new salary to break even of 50.6. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Salary you would give upminimum 0 $
62,000 $
Length of the breakaccepts 1–120 months
12 months
Course or retraining costminimum 0 $
15,000 $
Income earned during the breakminimum 0 $/month
800 $/month
Salary after the breakminimum 0 $
78,000 $

Results

Months of new salary to break even
50.6 months
Total cost of taking the break
$67,400.00
Annual salary gain afterwards
$16,000.00
Net position after ten years
$92,600.00

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Cost of the break
  3. 3Break-even
  4. 4Months of new salary to break even= 50.6 months
  5. 5Total cost of taking the break= $67,400.00
  6. 6Annual salary gain afterwards= $16,000.00
  7. 7Net position after ten years= $92,600.00

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 5 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if the new salary is lower?

Then there is no financial break-even and the calculator shows zero months. The decision has to rest on non-financial grounds such as hours, health or direction.

Does this account for lost pension contributions?

No. Add employer pension contributions and any vesting you forfeit to the retraining cost field for a fuller picture.

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