Ross Rondeau

Why I Built This: The True Cost of Recurring Friction

Throughout two decades leading software delivery, I watched routine daily frictions (scattered meeting schedules, slow build pipelines, noisy open offices, long commutes) get dismissed as harmless background noise. In reality, losing 30 to 60 minutes a day creates compounding career drag and silent financial loss.

This calculator makes that friction tangible by translating routine delays into lost working hours, effective hourly pay cuts, and 10-year compound investment losses.

Practical Benchmarks & Assumptions

1. Commute Baselines: The U.S. Census Bureau estimates an average 54-minute round-trip commute (225 hours per year). That is nearly a full month of 40-hour workweeks spent in transit.
2. True Vehicle Expenses: AAA analyses peg average annual vehicle ownership (depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance) at roughly $11,577 per year.
3. Compound Wealth Trade-Off: Hours recovered and invested at a baseline wage ($Salary / 2,000 hrs$) across a 10-year horizon at a standard 7.0% market return show the compound wealth lost to structural friction.

Every recurring inefficiency you eliminate gives you back focused engineering time and compounding career leverage.