3425: Stop Measuring Your Purchases in Dollars by Charlie Brown on Value of Time vs Money

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Optimal Living Daily. Stop measuring your purchases in dollars, measure them in hours of your life instead, and watch everything change.

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_00]: By Charlie Brown of simpleandstraightforward.substack.com and I'm Justin Malik. Welcome back to our usual Sunday bonus episode.

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're new here on Sundays, I share an extra episode from one of the other podcasts in the Optimal Living Daily network, usually overlapping with the kinds of themes that come up here.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Definitely the case today because we've talked about dollars representing hours of your life before.

[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what we'll be hearing about today.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is coming from Optimal Finance Daily, the second show we ever launched, still going strong after many, many years.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And you can follow or subscribe to that show wherever you're hearing this if you enjoy what you're about to hear.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_00]: That goes a long way to keep this show going as well.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So with that, let's get right to the post and commentary from Diana of Optimal Finance Daily as we optimize your life.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Stop measuring your purchases in dollars, measure them in hours of your life instead, and watch everything change.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_01]: By Charlie Brown of simpleandstraightforward.substack.com

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Time is money is back to front.

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Money is, in fact, time.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Spend enough of your waking hours on this platform and you'll see this phrase dotted about.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_01]: That money isn't life's finite resource.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Time is.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That you should consider how many hours it takes to make the money to buy the thing because your time is worth something.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a mindset I'm fully committed to.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: But when everyone around you still measures their purchases and money, not time, it doesn't make for an easy mindset shift.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I still struggle with it all.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's ride this time, money, merry-go-round together, shall we?

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_01]: What measuring your purchases in hours of your life actually looks like.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: There are a few ways to do this, but by far the easiest way is to figure out your hourly wage.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Then use that as a unit of measurement for all future purchases.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Earn $20 an hour after tax and spend $20 on a takeout pizza.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01]: That pizza costs you an hour of your life.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Spend $1,500 a month on rent or mortgage and bills?

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_01]: That's 75 hours or nearly two weeks of an average 40-hour work week.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a magic way of looking at life because it really is tangible.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_01]: You remember what it was like to work that hour, how you felt.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Were those hours worth it to buy the thing you've got your eye on?

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_01]: In my experience, this mindset shift works best when you're deciding whether to do something you don't really want to do.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Say some colleague you're not that keen on asks you to go to their birthday dinner.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: You've got to buy a gift.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_01]: You've got to pay for your dinner and likely a portion of the birthday person's dinner too.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: There might be pre- or after-dinner drinks.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: The cab to and from the venue.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Before you know it, you're racking up $300 or $400 on someone you're not even that bothered about.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Using the $20 an hour example, you've had to work 15 or 20 hours for that evening.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it worth it?

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Probably not.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_01]: For me, that's the tipping point.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The thought of working that hard for someone I don't care about will always trump the social faux pas of RSVPing no.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard because you're told your time is worthless.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's where this theory gets into sticky waters.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Society tells us that money is the most important measurement in life.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Your time?

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_01]: No, that's pretty worthless.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Think about it.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: We're told that working harder for less pay is normal.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: That unpaid overtime is just what you do to get ahead.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: There's pressure to not take your allotted annual leave to the tune of 768 million unused days a year in America alone.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: When it comes to work and thus money, your time is not considered your own.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Instead, it's in the hands of your boss or your clients who will try to get as much out of you for as little money as possible.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Society tells you your time isn't worth much, so why would you use it as a measurement for purchases?

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like the time I asked my friend who had just bought a very expensive house if he had considered how many hours of his life he will have to work in order to buy it.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01]: What does it matter, he told me?

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I've got to work 40 to 50 hours per week for the rest of my life anyway.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And besides, everyone hates their job.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't consider that he could work fewer hours if he bought a cheaper place or that his place was going to cost him years of his life because it's not the way we're taught to think.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_01]: We're taught money first, time second.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Switching these priorities around isn't easy when no one around you is doing the same, but it could save you.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: What measuring purchases in time can do for you?

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: For a start, it'll make you a more intentional spender.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Ask the question, how many hours of my life does this item cost?

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll wager you'll consider how badly you want that thing or experience much more than if you think, hey, it's just $50.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_01]: What does that matter?

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It could save you thousands.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It'll also make you value your time much, much more.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Constantly thinking about how you spend the hours of your life throws how you're spending them into sharp focus.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Once you get into the habit, you'll find it easier to value your time over money, which psychologists say is awesome for your happiness and well-being.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_01]: More time, more money, more happiness?

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all the good things, my friends.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: All the good things.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_01]: You just listened to the post titled, Stop Measuring Your Purchases in Dollars.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Measure them in hours of your life instead.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And watch everything change.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: By Charlie Brown of simpleandstraightforward.substack.com

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I first got exposed to this concept of valuing your purchases in terms of the time it will take you to earn the money to acquire them

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_01]: in the book, Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Just like money, time is a resource.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But unlike money, time is not a renewable resource.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's why this exercise is so confronting.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It makes us more aware of the fact that the time we're spending earning money is gone.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So in a way, to be thoughtful about how we're spending our money is a way to honor the time that we're alive.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_01]: The reality is that the way we spend any resource, whether that's time, money, or energy, is a reflection of what we value.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It gets uncomfortable when we notice a disparity between the way we're spending our resources and what we really value deep down.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: If we say we value time with family and our relationships, and yet we're spending most of our time working to afford a life of luxury, there's a disconnect there.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I found for me, this disconnect was really driven by my consumerist conditioning.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But with some soul searching, this can be corrected.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I found the book, Your Money or Your Life, very helpful in that regard.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that'll do it for today.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Hope you're having a great day.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll see you on tomorrow's episode, where your optimal life awaits.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here.