Time versus money and what is your time worth?

by Mike on June 7, 2014

Time versus money and what is your time worth?

I recently had an amusing opportunity to think about my time versus money and how these reward me after I earned some money in what I have fondly come to call a side hustle. One of my family members is in the middle of a renovation and asked if I could do some simple work switching light globes to LED lighting. She had whole squad of electricians quote up to three thousand dollars for something that literally took me ninety minutes and cost her $506 in LED bulbs. She was happy to pay me something for my time and still save about 70% on what all those electricians were offering!

Based on my loose grasp of economics and time versus money I think I made approximately $300 an hour!

 So whats your Money versus time mindset

When was last time you considered what you spend your time on and what you spend your money on. Are you paying for your apartment cleaning Chicago or doing it yourself?

And from this point did you conversely look at what your spending time and money on and what is your time and money worth. What can be changed and what are you wasting?

Time and Money at Home

Are you a compulsive home maintenance and cleaning person and feel you need to do it all yourself like me or conversely do you make some decisions to outsource some stuff. I am notoriously tight and to the never ending amusement of my lady I am washing my own car and doing my own gardens/yard. So what would it cost me to do these things if I wanted someone else to do it for me in order the save the time? I can tell you straight up this saves me approximately $150 a month.

Now how much time would that save me if I “outsourced” it? The above figure of money versus time roughly equals four to five hours of time saved by not doing it myself. So what could I be doing with my three to four hours time instead? How much could I be writing here on my blog? How many new contacts could I make for my business? How much of my time working can I be billing for clients?

I know I have a reason for doing those chores above and I will mention it later but whats your reason? How do you think about what you do around the home?

Time and Money at Work

So straight up I am a fan of team building and some one who outsources many of my business aspects. Many of my offline and online tasks are able to be done by someone faster and with more skill than I possibly could do. Naturally enough I am always looking for good team members and for many of them its a good opportunity for them to do some after hours work and make some extra money on the side. But for others its their way to take their skills online to other clients. For me its a way to increase what I can accomplish with my time and money and to value my strengths and weaknesses.

As an example I am not someone who can edit video so why would I try to work it out taking copious time to accomplish it when a simple enough search will find me an expert who accomplish this with my input and do a far better job than I might and in half the time.

I know this doesn’t cant apply equally to everyone employment but take as an example how often do you find yourself trying to work something out when an expert is available? How much of this time could be better spent on something else? Are you able to delegate or do you feel everything revolves around you?

As the old proverb goes “Time is money”.

So Time versus money and what is your time worth?

So above I made the comparison of doing my gardens and washing my car myself in order to save $150. This is actually a conscious deliberate decision I made, as I worked out this would save me approximately $1800 a year with which I plan to spend on another side project as an investment. Secondly as I spend a lot of time indoors those two chores help get me out into nature, get some sunlight and exercise and remain just that bit healthier. So you see how I have considered not just the financial consideration but what other benefits I can receive?

Ive actually sat and thought about my money versus time and what I do with both. How I spend them both and what they are worth to me. When was the last time you did this?

Know someone making some crazy decisions about time versus money? Or had your own “ahah” moment about the decisions you make? Leave us a comment and don’t forget sharing is caring!

***Photo thanks to TaxCredits.net***

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