Move Over, Elvis --Dickeson

A Simple Formula

Instead, Dodd ventures, just add up all the fixed costs you expect for a year and divide by all the hours of people you expect will be involved with jobs for the year and, voila, you have a CAR—Cost Accumulation Rate per hour. To estimate a base TSP for a job, just add the variable costs, together with the hours you "expect" to use for the job, multiply by the CAR, and there you have it—a breakeven TSP.