This post over at Make Love, Not Debt got me thinking about time and money. They were considering sending out their laundry to be done, rather than doing it themselves despite the fact it will cost 360 more each year. Their justification on considering it is the time savings.
Now, I don't have a problem with saving time, but I think that a lot of unnecessary money is spent and justified by "it will save us so much time!" I myself am guilty of this. I don't mean to pick on Him and Her. It was just their entry that started this thought process. But I've noticed a lot of products that people buy because their life is so chaotic, how can they not buy pre-sliced apples and pre-made PBJ? They are so drained at the end of the day, popping a frozen dinner in the oven is too much, so they go spend 40 dollars eating out. (This is the one I'm most guilty of.) There are graveyards of abandoned time saving kitchen appliances in thrift stores and at yard sales. I was a maid right out of college, and I cleaned houses that were already pretty clean because the people worked so much they were not there to mess their house up. But I'm sure they were paying the service I worked for because they had no time to clean.
Now, I do understand that many people really have very little time. For two years I was out of the house from 7 AM-at least 7 PM, and sometimes later. I have been there, and understand it can be very tempting to spend a lot of money on something that saves time. But be sure to evaluate how much time it will really save. I think a lot of people overestimate how long it will take them to do things like pack a lunch. ("I don't have time to pack lunch, so I'll spend 8 dollars at Quizno's.")
It takes my husband and I about 5 minutes to pack a lunch. We eat leftovers that we pop in reusable containers. When I ate out while working, eating out took more time.
1.I had to leave my job to go to a restaurant..
2. I had to stand in line for food.
3 I had to find a place to sit., which could be hard during lunch hour.
4. I had to eat my food quickly, so I would get back to my job.
I usually felt rushed when I ate out. When I brought my lunch, I went to the break room, ate my lunch while reading an interesting book or magazine, and still had time to go outside and take a walk. For me, eating out did not save time at all. It cost me more time and money in the long run.
Carefully evaluate your choices! Be sure that whatever you're spending your money on really does, in fact, save time. Be careful not to fall into the "it saves time!" excuse.
*Note: I'm not saying it's bad to send your laundry out or that you should not buy pre-sliced fruit. It just makes me nuts when people I know (or sometimes, don't know) are buried in debt and stressed out, then say that they're doing everything they possibly can to save money, then say that they have a maid service, eat out every night, send out their laundry, and buy pre-sliced, pre-cooked everything because it "saves so much time." If you can afford these things and want to do it, more power to you!
4 comments:
I agree with you. Many times I think people just aren't truthful with themselves about why they are really doing/buying the timesaver. Maybe Him and Her just dislike doing the laundry. Perhaps the pre-sliced apples just look very tempting in their colorful little package. A person who knows his own motivation well might decide that his antipathy for doing laundry justifies paying someone else to do it, fair enough. Or he might concede that he has fallen victim to the effective marketing of the sliced apple packager. But if we're talking "time saving", we have to figure in the amount of time it takes to earn the money to pay for these services, and how that compares to the time involved in doing them ourselves. Then it generally becomes clear that they aren't "time savers" after all.
Me too Jilly! I hate putting it away! When I was single and lived alone, I pretty much just lived out f the laundry basket. That's also one of the worst thing about the laundromat for me- you do just tons at once, rather than a load or two, so you have a huge pile to put away when you get home. UGH!
Interesting about time and money yet when I am idle, my opportunity cost of time goes to zero. I have had many people at work/friends make the same arguement of it is not worth thier time. A good example is I shared some thoughts about a dollar a day savings...A lot of good laughs at me that day! LOL. When I showed the math that the present value of savings a dollar a day over a lifetime (20 years) with interest is a lot of money, I did not make converts.
Saving a dollar a day is worth a lot of time especially is the savings annuitized like on a recurring bill or expense. Also, small changes, two, three, five items will take a small stream and create a river of savings.
I wrote two posts you can read on my blog if you use the search terms below.
http://simplicity-in-kansas.blogspot.com/search?q=dollar+a+day&x=52&y=9
Meant to say...Its early prior to work...
Saving a dollar a day is worth a lot especially is the savings annuitized like on a recurring bill or expense. Also, small changes, two, three, five items will take a small stream of savings and create a river of savings.
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