Think about money differently, for most people, time equals money, so spend it like you were spending your time. Because most of the time that is the case. Also, don’t put a price tag on your health. Spending money and “spending time” on your health, will pay itself back.
When spending money, just the way you think about it can change your decisions. If you think of money as money, and you just spend whatever you get paid for after working for a month, you can easily just spend it on something pretty useless.
By thinking of money as time, you could minimize the amount of useless stuff you spend your money on. Because for most of the people, time equals money. They get paid by hour or monthly with a fixed salary.
Money equals time
When considering about buying something, don’t just look at the price tag. Calculate, how much you would have to work to afford that item. Does it seem worth it to spend 50 hours of work buying something you might need some day? Start thinking of your money as the time you had to spend to get that money.
It can be very different for different people. That is why some people can afford to buy more expensive things. They simply get paid more for their time, or their income is not tied to the time they spend working.
Even if you start earning more, maybe passively, you can still use this calculating process to decide, if you really need the things, you are about to buy. If you made a 1000 dollars in profit on the stock market and you put that money to use, you could still calculate how many hours of work that money would be, even if you didn’t really work to get that money.
I can tell, that many times I have been thinking about buying something somewhat useless. But after thinking how much work it would require me to afford it, even if I had the amount in my bank account, I decided not to buy it.
Don’t put a price tag on your health
There are things that are not necessary that I talked about before. However, you don’t always have to overthink about how much you had to work in order to afford the things.
Food, for example, is one thing I would not recommend saving on. If healthier food costs a bit more, so be it. It probably will pay itself back by you being healthier and maybe living a little bit longer. Don’t put a price tag on your health or the health of your loved ones.
By spending a little bit more on your well-being, that can literally pay itself back in time. If you have to spend 1000 dollars, with 10 dollars per hour, that makes 100 hours. If you manage to extend your healthy life with months or even years for this price, I could say it is a pretty good trade. Even if it just improved your overall health, well-being and quality of life, it would still pay itself back. Don’t put a price tag on health.
Worst things people spend their money on
Also known as the worst things people trade their time for. The first thing that came to my mind was spending money in bars and clubs. The drinks literally can be calculated in working hours.
One drink costs you one hour of your time working, and the benefit you get from it is rarely worth it. First, it doesn’t last you an hour. Second, it probably will make you regret drinking it in the morning. The third thing is, those things can cost a fortune in the longer run.
Some people work their week in their 9 to 5 jobs. After a long week, they blow off some steam, drinking and spending in the most extreme cases half of the money they earned in the past week. All this to make it through the next week and reward themselves with ridiculous hangover in the morning. On top of that, it can be really harmful to your health.
The message I’m trying to say is not that you should stop drinking. I’m saying, start thinking about where you spend your money and time. By working 20 hours a week just to cover your weekend drinks, is it worth it?
If you want to drink, think beforehand about how much you are going to spend on a night by doing so. There are far less expensive ways to spend Friday night out, even if that included heavy drinking.
Other things people spend their money and that way too much time on are too expensive cars, for example. If you just cut the money you spent on your car in half, that car probably still wouldn’t be half as bad.
For some people, however, their car can be almost everything, so always think about how important the thing you are spending the money for is to you. I have a dedicated post about how much you should spend on a car, you can read it here.
Final words
By thinking of money as time, you can save on some stupid things you don’t really need. On the other hand, by doing things that increase your well-being, you can have a positive return time-wise.
Think about how much time you would spend on each purchase that is non-essential. Hopefully this can help you spend your money a little bit smarter. Have a nice day. Other saving-related posts can be found here.