4-Day Week

Your first 4 days pay the bills. The 5th day is almost pure savings, so it earns a far higher savings wage per hour than the year's average.

All figures are in today's money: every rate on this page is real, i.e. above inflation. Why?

Income

Gross salary at 5 days (€/yr)

Schedule

Weekly Hours (5 days)

Vacation Days (/yr)

Public Holidays (/yr)

225 work days at 5 days, 180 at 4 · 8 hrs/day

Living Expenses

Monthly Living Expenses (€/mo)

Rent, food, bills: the fixed base your income must clear before anything becomes savings: €24,000/yr

Per-Workday Costs

Commute (€/day)

Lunch (€/day)

Dropping day 5 saves €675 commute + €450 lunch + €0 childcare = €1,125 per year.

Childcare

Kindergarten fee saved on the day off (€/day)

One kindergarten day/week saved by staying home on the day off = €0/yr (added to 4-day cash)

Deductions

Deductions on the 4-day salary (%)

Average burden: tax + social contributions on the 4-day gross.

Deductions on the 5th day (%)

Marginal burden: your top rate on the extra slice the 5th day adds.

Metric	5-Day Week	4-Day Week	Advantage
Yearly Savings Net income minus expenses, per year	€9,615	€4,140	−€5,475
Effective Hourly Wage Savings ÷ hours worked	€5.34/hr	€2.88/hr	−€2.47/hr

Why the 5th day is (almost) pure savings

The first 4 days' net take-home already covers your €24,000 of living costs. So everything the 5th day adds (net of its marginal-rate tax, its per-workday costs and the childcare you forfeit) lands entirely in savings, at a much higher per-hour rate than the year's average.

Where the Year's Net Income Goes

Same expense block (dashed line) sits under both. Working the 5th day doesn't grow your rent; it only grows the green savings cap on top.

Living Expenses Savings

5-Day vs 4-Day Breakdown

	5 Days	4 Days
Gross Salary	€60,000	€48,000
Tax Paid	−€20,760	−€15,360
Per-Workday Costs	−€5,625	−€4,500
Childcare Saved (day off)	–	+€0
Net Cash Position	€33,615	€28,140
Living Expenses	−€24,000	−€24,000
Annual Savings	€9,615	€4,140
Hours Worked	1,800 hrs	1,440 hrs
Savings Wage (per hour)	€5.34/hr	€2.88/hr

Marginal savings wage of the 5th day (the €5,475 it adds ÷ 360 hrs): €15.21/hr.

Net cash: 5-day = €33,615, 4-day = €28,140.
Real work days: 225 days at 5 days/week, 180 at 4.
Savings: your €2,000/mo = €24,000/yr is the same fixed base whichever schedule you pick, so it comes off both.
Savings wage: annual savings ÷ hours worked (1,800 hrs at 5 days, 1,440 at 4). It measures how hard each hour works toward savings once the bills are paid. It is not the same as gross pay per hour.
Marginal savings wage of the 5th day: because the first 4 days already clear all your expenses, the 5th day's whole net contribution becomes savings, so this rate (€15.21/hr) sits well above the 5-day average (€5.34/hr).
The flip side: that also means the 5th day is the only day funding your savings. Drop it and savings fall from €9,615 to €4,140, a 57% cut, while hours fall only 20%.
The cut looks bigger than it is: part of the 5th day's gross pay was already going straight back out as its own commute, lunch and childcare: €1,125/yr that stops being spent, not just stops being earned. So the real drop in what you keep is smaller than the 20% gross-pay cut alone suggests.

Gross salary at 4 days

\text{gross}_4 = 0.8 \cdot \text{gross}_5

gross4 = 0.8 × 60,000

gross5: 5-day gross annual salary

Real work days

\text{workDays}_5 = 260 - \text{vacationDays} - \text{publicHolidays} \qquad \text{workDays}_4 = \text{workDays}_5 \cdot \frac{4}{5}

workDays5 = 260 − 25 − 10 workDays4 = workDays5 × 4/5

vacationDays: vacation days per year
publicHolidays: public holidays per year

Tax

\text{tax}_4 = \text{gross}_4 \cdot \frac{\text{deductionRate}_4}{100} \qquad \text{tax}_5 = \text{tax}_4 + (\text{gross}_5 - \text{gross}_4) \cdot \frac{\text{deductionRate5th}}{100}

tax4 = gross4 × 32 / 100 tax5 = tax4 + (60,000 − gross4) × 45 / 100

gross4: see Gross salary at 4 days above
deductionRate4: average deduction rate on the 4-day salary, %
gross5: 5-day gross annual salary
deductionRate5th: marginal deduction rate on the 5th day, %

Net cash

\text{net}_5 = \text{gross}_5 - \text{tax}_5 - \text{costs}_5 \qquad \text{net}_4 = \text{gross}_4 - \text{tax}_4 - \text{costs}_4 + \text{childcareSaving}

costs5: per-workday commute + lunch costs at 5 days
costs4: per-workday commute + lunch costs at 4 days
childcareSaving: kindergarten fee saved on the day off

Savings

\text{savings} = \text{net} - \text{monthlyExpenses} \cdot 12

savings = net − 2,000 × 12

net: net cash (see Net cash above)
monthlyExpenses: fixed monthly living expenses

Marginal savings wage of the 5th day

\text{marginalSavingsWage} = \frac{\text{savings}_5 - \text{savings}_4}{\text{fifthDayHours}}

savings5: see Savings above (5-day)
savings4: see Savings above (4-day)
fifthDayHours: hours worked on the 5th day = hoursPerDay × daysOff

Assumptions behind every figure: how this site models the market →