When you choose to buy something, you’re not just spending the money, you’re spending time, your most valuable non-renewable resource.

It takes time to decide what to buy, time to buy it, time to unpack it, try it on, set it up, learn how to use it, etc. Then, it takes more time to clean it, maintain it, organize it, repair it, and one day get rid of it.

That must be what Thoreau was talking about in Walden: “The cost of a thing is the amount of … life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

They say “time is money” because the way you got that money in the first place was to put time in to adding value with your work. Whether you work hourly, on a salary, or run your own business, you’re spending time you’ll never get back to earn the money to buy something.

Let’s put this in more concrete terms:

In the first quarter of 2019, the median salary in the USA was less than $48,000 before taxes. Assuming only 20% removed for taxes, that leaves $38,400 per year in take-home income. At an average of 50 weeks worked (two weeks of vacation) at 40 hours per week, that’s an average income of $19.20/hour.

They decide to buy the following things:

• T-shirt: $20
• Blender: $80
• TV: $800
• Computer: $1,200
• Car: $30,000

Now, without even considering sales tax, interest or ongoing costs, here’s how much time they’re working to buy these things:

• T-shirt: 1hr 2min
• Blender: 4hr 10min
• TV: 41hr 40min (5.2 workdays)
• Computer: 62hr 30min (7.8 workdays)
• Car: 1,562hr 30min (195.3 workdays, 39 workweeks)

Pretty eye-opening, huh? Does this mean you should never buy anything? Of course not. The point of this thought exercise is that if you want to achieve your financial goals, you should think carefully about the exchange of value for every purchase. Some people recommend adding something to your cart online and waiting a few days to decide if it’s worth it. Often that’s enough time to figure out if it’ll be worth it to you.

Also, just because something is on sale, doesn’t mean it’s worth the time you spent working to earn that money. Getting a “good deal” is only a good deal if you were going to spend the original price either way.

Buy yourself some time

While it’s not always a positive exchange of value to buy things, experiences and services tend to get the biggest return on the money (and time) spent.

For instance, taking your family out for a day of fun or on vacation can be worth way more than the cost. Services can be used to give you more time by delegating work that would take your time to people that have decided they want to earn money for putting in the time to do something they’re good at.

Remember: Time is your most valuable non-renewable resource. You can always earn more money, but you’ll never get that hour back, so invest it wisely.

Know someone that could benefit from this post? Share it with them: