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Buying Time: Is Your Time Worth Your Dime?
312 Plays10 months ago
Hosted by: Dusti, David, and MindyEpisode Summary:
In this thought-provoking episode, Dusti, David, and Mindy tackle a topic that's worth every second: Buying Time. But what exactly does 'buying time' mean? Each host brings their unique perspective to the table, making for an engaging and slightly humorous discussion.
What's Inside:
- Defining 'Buying Time': Dusti sees it as using time as a tool to help her deliberate on decisions. David considers it as investing assertively in order to buy years of your life energy back. And Mindy? She's all about paying for convenience in order to focus on quality of life.
- The Value Proposition: How much is your time really worth? We dive into the economics of time and why buying it back might be the best investment you'll ever make.
- Humorous Anecdotes: Ever gone too far to save on a flight? We share some funny personal experiences where buying time went hilariously right (or wrong).
- Listener Interaction: Consider if you should buy your time back, and if so, why? Dusti, David, and Mindy share their thoughts, but we're eager to hear yours!
Engage with Us:
- Social Media Shoutout: Got a funny story about buying time or want to share your thoughts on the topic? Tweet us @forgetaboutmoney or drop a comment on our YouTube channel @forgetaboutmoneypodcast.
- Join the Conversation: Fancy being a guest on our podcast? We'd love to hear your take on buying time. Shoot us an email at emailforgetaboutmoney@gmail.com and let's chat!
Final Thoughts:
Remember, time is non-renewable, but that doesn't mean you can't get creative with how you spend it! Join us next week for another engaging discussion on Forget About Money Podcast.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Buying Time'
00:00:00
Speaker
How valuable is your time? Today we talk about buying time. What it is and is it worth it? Here we go. Welcome to Forget About Money, where we encourage you to take action today towards a life that brings you joy and fulfillment, leaving your money worries in the past.
Perspectives on Buying Time
00:00:23
Speaker
Today, Dusty, David, and I are talking about buying time. Dusty, I would love to hear your thoughts on buying time. First, what does buying time mean to you? Yeah, so when I hear the phrase buying time, I think about putting something off.
00:00:41
Speaker
I am buying time so that I can make a decision or postpone having a conversation or delaying potentially an inevitable outcome. So there's definitely a trade-off and sometimes it's figuring out what that trade-off is. And I guess there are other ways to think about buying time, but when I initially hear that phrase, that's what I think about. I love that. What about you, David? Sounds like procrastination to me.
00:01:06
Speaker
Ooh, we didn't ask you to comment on what Dusty said, David. We asked you what your definition of buying time is. When I think of buying time, I think of trading in many cases money so that you have more time on your side of the ledger at some point. So in our case, we're all part of the financial independence community. And one baseline belief is that
00:01:29
Speaker
If you invest your money wisely then you can buy years back so that you can spend your time how you want to spend it not necessarily at a ninety five job that you.
Efficient Actions and Time-Saving Choices
00:01:40
Speaker
The test or dislike and another way to look at it is maybe just doing things more efficiently like buying time for example if you go to the grocery store and you.
00:01:49
Speaker
park near the buggy return. You can just get out and grab it and go, and then when you're done offloading your groceries or whatever it is you bought at the store, you can just return the buggy right next to your car. That's a way to think about time more efficiently. You bought yourself at least a few seconds back. Now, what do you do with that time? I mean, I don't know. I guess that's what you have to wait to decide if the trade-off is actually worth it.
00:02:13
Speaker
Okay, so that's very interesting. I first thought of what David said when I heard this concept of buying time. You are paying to get your time back. So instead of you DIY-ing it, you are
00:02:31
Speaker
paying somebody else to do it, so now your time is yours. The time that you would have spent doing it is yours. And I think of this in context with home improvement projects because Carl and I are in the middle of, actually we're at the tail end of revamping our entire house.
00:02:50
Speaker
We have two bathroom remodels and a staircase to do. And we were going to install all of these doors, if anybody heard that episode. And instead, we hired our friend Eric to come in and install our doors. He did it all in one day, and it probably would have taken us
00:03:14
Speaker
all one day to install these doors, but we paid him to do it and then we were able to work on different projects. Carl came up to me the other day and said, hey, I found this guy to do the staircase, the stair railing. It's going to be $2,000 if he does it. It's probably going to be $1,000 if we do it.
00:03:36
Speaker
And my thought was, I don't care if it's $10,000. I do not want to do this project. I am sick of working on this house. Let's pay somebody else. So I am happy in this particular time in my life to pay somebody else to do these tasks. But also, I think that it's a real privilege to be able to buy my time
00:04:05
Speaker
And the reason that I can buy my time back is because I spent so many years doing it myself, doing it ourselves. I keep saying myself, but Carl's not on this podcast, so I did it all myself. He actually did some of the work too.
Travel and Time Management
00:04:21
Speaker
So Dusty.
00:04:22
Speaker
The other thing it reminds me of is this story I've heard you tell before about how Carl, to save $20, bought a plane ticket that had a layover and how much more time you guys spent. Too, too late.
00:04:39
Speaker
And i think about that a lot with travel right like how much is your time worth where if you do spend a little bit more. Does that give you an extra four hours does that give you an extra eight hours does it make it easier i thought about that even when i recently flew to my parents house which you can see that beautiful background.
00:04:59
Speaker
And I chose my flight location based on a shorter commute, a shorter flight, easier to get in and out of the airport where, yeah, I paid a little bit more and had a much better experience. Not stressed out. I'm enjoying my time here a hundred times better than if I had done something else. And I think about that story with Carl a lot where I'm like, oh,
00:05:22
Speaker
What's it worth? Yeah, I think about that story too. Conveniently, we were flying to Camp Fi, and there was always going to be one stopover. For some reason, there were no direct flights from Denver to Orlando. But there was a direct flight back, which didn't make any sense.
00:05:43
Speaker
So we were always going to have one stopover, but he's like, Oh, instead of going Denver, Chicago, Orlando, what if we go Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Orlando? Like, or not.
00:05:58
Speaker
So yeah, and we have actually bought our time back in a slightly related different way as well. We have made travel rules. It is cheaper to fly at 6 a.m. than it is to fly at 10 a.m.
00:06:15
Speaker
But we also know that if we fly at 6 a.m., we don't sleep the whole night because we're worried that we will miss our alarm. So we start off our vacation or our trip terrible and the whole rest of the vacation, you're playing catch up on your sleep. So now we have decided that we don't
00:06:37
Speaker
fly before 10 a.m. And again, that comes from a place of privilege and a place of we did fly at 6 a.m. for so many years. So that's another way to buy your time is I have bought time on vacation by being able to enjoy my vacation and I'm not starting off the vacation in a sleep deficit.
00:07:00
Speaker
So in that case, it's not necessarily time by the amount, but the quality of time that you're buying back. Exactly. Yeah, that's good. So I know you and Carl have a long history of doing home improvement projects and doing a lot of fix and flips. And now you're at the point where if you do have housework, you're considering, like you mentioned earlier, outsourcing it. We can outsource for a lot of other things too. If you could outsource for other things, I know that Mill Prep is a big industry now,
00:07:29
Speaker
car maintenance, those are all types of outsourcing. What would you outsource or have you already outsourced other than home improvement, those kinds of things in your own life?
Outsourcing for Time Management
00:07:41
Speaker
I have outsourced cleaning my house. I hate cleaning my house. As some people know, because they've been at my house and decided that they were gonna clean it for me, David. Dusty, come on.
00:07:59
Speaker
You did that? He cleaned my microwave. In his defense, it was pretty gross. That doesn't sound like me at all, does it, Dusty? No, you would never do that.
00:08:14
Speaker
But I don't like cleaning. It feels like such a waste of time because you spend all this time cleaning and then I have two kids and they come right behind you and like mess it all up again. I read something like cleaning a house with children is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos. So I have hired a housekeeper. She comes every other week and she does an awesome job of cleaning. My bathtub has never been cleaner and neither has the rest of the house.
00:08:43
Speaker
Dusty, what would you outsource? One second question. I think meal prep would be kind of nice to outsource on occasion. But I think it's more just the things that I really don't like to do that are not recurring, more like annual tasks. So taking down the shade sale, putting the shade sale up, things that I technically can do, and yet I find really difficult. So I think those are some of the things that I would outsource. What about you?
00:09:12
Speaker
Probably clipping my toenails. I just have this thing against it. You could get a pedicure. You could go and get a pedicure. You don't have to have nail polish. I guess that's outsourcing, right? A pedicure isn't about doing your nails. That's like a bonus at the end. It is about getting all the dead skin off your feet and they give you a leg massage if you're not super ticklish and they make your toenails in a nice, pretty shape.
00:09:42
Speaker
Are you serious? It feels so good. It feels so good. I'm not serious. But if I were to outsource, I like doing. I enjoy cleaning. I like cooking. Clearly. I love doing yard work. Maybe washing my car, but I don't mind that either. But if I had to do it.
00:10:02
Speaker
If I had to do it, I don't know, maybe cleaning baseboards and flooring, maybe specifically baseboards and flooring in my house, just cause I don't like feeling dirt underneath my bare feet. So cleaning the baseboards, you can keep them cleaner longer by taking a dryer sheet and rubbing it all, a clean dryer sheet, rubbing it all over the baseboards. That helps repel dust. I did
Humor and Closing Thoughts
00:10:28
Speaker
not know that. Well, now you do. This is a very informative podcast.
00:10:32
Speaker
You can learn something new every day on Ask Martha. And if this podcast doesn't work out, I think we just say there's so many benefits to starting a podcast. I'm already starting to find some one just in this episode that we're recording right now. And that is that if this doesn't work out, we can invent Oreo flavored toothpaste. And I think kids would love it. And we already know that Oreos come in 85 flavors. So you could have multiple versions.
00:10:58
Speaker
Like this is the only toothpaste that does cause cavities. Yeah, it doesn't have to be made out of Oreos. It's just Oreo flavored. That would be a terrible toothpaste. It's made from real Oreos. I'm still surprised you wouldn't outsource anything.
00:11:17
Speaker
Well, what do you, I mean, even both of you are somewhat familiar with parenting. What about parenting? I do. I outsourced it to his mom every other week. That's true. Yeah, but you're buying time and that seems like a good use of outsourcing. It is. She's a great mom. Maybe I just wish I loved doing everything like doing all my chores because I don't.
00:11:40
Speaker
Dusty and David, I think this is a super fun topic. I would love to hear from our listeners. I want to hear what you would outsource. I want to hear how you are buying back your time. I want to hear what your definition of buying time is. That wraps up this episode of the Forget About Money podcast. Thanks for listening, fam. He is David, she is Dusty, and I am Mindy. Sayon, see you later.