Money or time?

How to decide which to spend, and on what

You have so much to do, and so little time to do it. So you hire someone to clean your house, wash your car, run your errands, etc. That is, until you realize that you have spent all your so-called disposable income and now no longer have time OR money. Now what?

Let’s look into our crystal ball. It’s a while from now. A week, month, year. Suddenly you find yourself not making that extra commission money you were counting on. You haven’t had a raise in awhile and that Adjustable Rate Mortgage that sounded so good while you were buying your house is rearing its ugly head. I’m not trying to look at the bad side, only point out “what if’s.”

It’s time to make the tough decisions. We are going through a hard time in our economy. Even if you are making enough money to keep the Housekeeper and Personal Assistant, should you? After all, they need the money too, and they have the time to do these things. But we’re not talking about other, just you.

Make a list of things you pay other people to do. Everything from dry cleaning to changing the oil in your car. You notice, those are both things probably done better by an expert, but put them on the list anyway.

Next to these, put the time it would take you to do that task. It would take me three days to change the oil on my car, so that is what I put. But I found a product that I can use in my dryer to do basic dry cleaning, so I do some of that myself. Catching on? Write a long list. Next to these items, write down how much it costs to have someone else do it.

Now write a list of everything you do in a day yourself. Driving to work, answering emails, etc. How long does each take?

Put the two lists together. How much is your time worth? $10/hr? $50/hr? Are you spending your valuable time doing un-valuable things and your valuable money having cheap things done for you?

Quick example:

Done for me: Their Price: To do it myself:
Oil Change $30 $300
Dry Cleaning $45 $10
Housecleaning $75 $50

Can you see which you should decide to do yourself and which you should let someone else do?

Time is money, but so is cash.