Sabbatical ROI Calculator
What's the honest financial cost of taking 6, 12, or 18 months off? Cash drawdown + foregone earnings + lifetime compounding — quantified, so you can weigh against the experience.
The three components of sabbatical cost
Most "sabbatical math" focuses on cash drawdown and stops there. The honest accounting has three components that compound:
- Cash cost. Living expenses during sabbatical + during job search after. Most visible. A 12-month sabbatical at $4K/month + 3-month search = $60K. This is the savings drawdown.
- Foregone earnings. What you would have taken home during the gap. At $200K salary × 70% take-home / 12mo × 15 months = $175K of pay you didn't earn. Ten times the cash cost in many cases.
- Lifetime opportunity cost. Those foregone earnings, had they been invested at 7% real return, compounded to retirement. $175K compounded over 25 years becomes $950K of "wealth not built." This is usually the biggest number — and the one most calculators ignore.
The reskill counterweight. If the sabbatical produces a salary increase on return (bootcamp, master's, deliberate skill-building), the recurring per-year boost compounded over remaining career can offset some or all of the lifetime cost. A 12-month sabbatical that yields a 15% salary boost over 30 years can produce a NET POSITIVE lifetime impact even after foregone earnings. The calculator handles this case explicitly with the salary-ratio input.
Math runs locally. Inputs never leave your browser. Source on github.
Real-world scenarios
- Geo-Arbitrage Calculator — if you're sabbatical-ing with slow travel abroad, the cheaper monthly expenses change the cash-cost math significantly.
- FIRE Calculator — how does a sabbatical delay your retirement age? Compare with vs without scenario.
- Digital Nomad Tax — if abroad during sabbatical, FEIE may apply if you have any earned income (even part-time consulting).