The extra shift is worth its overtime-correct gross minus the costs the shift itself creates, and nothing else. At $19.00 an hour, six hours that carry a week from 38 to 44 pay $152.00: two hours of straight time at $19.00 and four hours at $28.50, because the DOL's overtime fact sheet requires overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half the regular rate. The condition that changes the figure: if the week was already at 40, all six hours pay $28.50 and the gross is $171.00.
Only the costs the shift creates go in
Rent does not become a new expense because you work Saturday. A separate Saturday trip does. The test is whether the cost exists in one version of the day and not the other, so write the two versions and subtract. Keep an unanswered cost out of the total and on its own line: a fare your employer might reimburse is a question, not a number, until someone answers it. A care arrangement is the same. A price in a worksheet does not establish that the person is free.
Travel has a published price. The IRS business standard mileage rate is 76 cents a mile from July 1 to December 31, 2026, against 72.5 cents for the first half of the year and 70 cents for 2025, which is enough to turn a 22-mile round trip into $16.72 without guessing. Care is the line no federal page can price for you; the rate below is the one fictional figure here, because no public source publishes what your sitter charges.
Example: six hours at $19.00, against the day it changes
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| Line | Without the shift | With the shift | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | $722.00 | $874.00 | +$152.00 |
| Driving, 22 miles at 76 cents | $0.00 | $16.72 | -$16.72 |
| Sitter, 6 hours at $9.00 | $0.00 | $54.00 | -$54.00 |
| Meal bought on shift | $0.00 | $12.00 | -$12.00 |
| Groceries already bought | $6.00 | $6.00 | $0.00 |
The arithmetic: 38 x $19.00 = $722.00 without, and 40 x $19.00 + 4 x $28.50 = $874.00 with, a gross difference of $152.00. Costs created are $16.72 + $54.00 + $12.00 = $82.72. Net is $69.28 for six hours, about $11.55 an hour. The $6.00 of groceries is unchanged in both columns and is not subtracted.
Timing is the second half of the answer. The $82.72 leaves this week; the $152.00 arrives on the next payday. The CFPB's cash flow budget tool carries each week's ending balance into the next week's beginning balance, so put the costs in the week they are paid and the pay in the week it lands.
The regular rate is not always your hourly rate
If you earn a shift differential or a bonus you were promised in advance, the overtime rate is higher than 1.5 times your base. The DOL's regular rate fact sheet gives the formula as total compensation in the workweek, except for statutory exclusions, divided by total hours worked in the workweek, and states that all compensation for hours worked, services rendered, or performance must be included. Gifts, vacation and holiday pay, expense reimbursements, discretionary bonuses and benefit plan contributions may be excluded. So a $1.50 night differential on all 44 hours does not just add $66.00; it raises the divisor-based regular rate, and the four overtime hours are paid at time and a half of the higher figure.
Time is the line the arithmetic leaves out. Six paid hours on a Saturday usually costs eight or nine hours of the day once the two trips and the handover are counted, and those hours are not priced anywhere in the table above.
So ask one question before you answer the shift request: "Does the night differential go into the overtime rate for that week?" Then write the line you will send back: "I can take the six hours Saturday. That is $152 gross for me and about $83 in travel, care and a meal, so I need the shift to end by 8 pm for the sitter." Before you decide, work through what to check first on an extra shift, price the opposite move in the unpaid-day map, and put both amounts on the same calendar as your bills.