Buy Back Time
On this site, we talk about all things money. Therefore it is easy to assume that you might think I believe the most important resource in our lives is money. However, that is wrong.
I actually believe that time actually is the most precious resource we have.
Time cannot be mined like gold. Time cannot be pumped out of the ground like crude oil. And we cannot invest time and earn 8% returns like the stock market. Once we use it, it is gone forever, and we can’t make any more of it. Therefore time, I believe, is our most valuable asset, and when we have the means to, I highly recommend we trade the money we have to buy back more time in our lives.
01 - Clarify Priorities
However, before we acquire more time, if we don’t have clarity as to what we are going to do with that extra time, all our efforts will be in vain.
“He who fails to plan plans to fail.”
What is the point of buying back a good chunk of our time, but we end up bored and aimless? Or worse yet, waste it on activities that don't align with what is most important to us. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you get started:
What do you want to make time for every day?
What would you like to accomplish in your life?
Is there anyone you wish you could spend more time with?
What we want to do is clarify what we most value in our lives. This will help us identify our top time priorities once we can have more of them. And know that priorities are fluid. It changes based on our stage of life: new experiences and new knowledge.
When I was 27 years old, I remember my number one priority was successfully transitioning from my previous career in the Army. So every waking extra time was spent on researching graduate schools and new careers friendly to transitioning military officers.
However, ten years later, when I was 37 years old, my priorities changed because my life circumstances changed. My new priority became spending more time with my growing family. So I did my best to carve out whatever extra time I had to spend with my wife and the kids.
So ask yourself, if you can buy back five more hours out of your time per week, what would you want to spend that extra time on?
02 - Evaluate Work Life
Work, whether we like it or occupy a huge chunk of our lives. According to data in the book, Happiness at Work, it is estimated workers spend an average of 90,000 hours on the job. Or close to a third of our lives. But how many of us are intentional about our careers or our jobs? Most often, the most important factor when it comes to working is money.
And In the spirit of wanting to make more and more money, we often take jobs with the highest salary without consideration of the quality of life or even quality of work. Who cares if it requires me to work 80 hours a week? Or 2 hours away from home. Earning the highest amount is what matters. However, there is an actual cost to working just for money. Not only will we burn out, but we need to be more careful using up the most precious resource we have, our time.
I know work is essential. It not only pays us, but it also gives us a sense of purpose and accomplishment. However, we weren’t created to work all day and die one day. If we clarify our priorities correctly, we will realize that we have many other obligations and desires - our family, hobbies, and community. Let me share with you a couple of tips to buy back more time from work.
Commute - One is to reduce your commute if you can. According to data from the U.S. Census, the average American worker commuted close to 30 minutes (27.6) to work each way. That adds up to one hour in the car each day, and when we stretch this out to a year, we are talking about close to 200 hours spent commuting to and from work.
WFH - Try negotiating to work from home. We know many companies allowed this during the COVID-19 pandemic. If your company is still friendly to this idea, talk to your manager. Even if you are only able to negotiate a few days a week, that is still a win.
Part-Time - Another idea to carve back time from work is to consider cutting back your hours or going part-time. My wife and I did this a while back and noticed a very interesting phenomenon. The world didn’t end.
Our paycheck didn’t drop as much as anticipated because we were paying fewer taxes with less take-home pay. We are able to continue healthcare for our family due to affordable care. And our overall expenses dropped because we didn’t need to spend money on work-related items like gas for commuting, clothes, and even stress spending from work.
At the end of the day, whether you cut your commute down or are able to negotiate to work less, the bottom line is to evaluate your current work situation with a fresh lens. Are the times that you are spending at work today aligned with your current life priorities? And if not, what can you start doing to regain that time?
03 - Optimal Home Size
Home is a very sensitive topic in America. It symbolizes the American dream. Therefore many of us work very hard to live in the biggest house we can afford. We envision a large bedroom where we will rest. The fancy kitchen to cook excellent meals. And a huge dining room to host family and friends. However, according to a study published in the Wall Street Journal, we only tend to use a small amount of our living space.
The study found that 68% of the family’s time was primarily spent in the kitchen as well as the family room. The formal dining room got almost no use; the living room saw very little activity and the porch? No one hardly sits there.
Do We Really Need All Those Rooms?
I know every family dynamic is different, and with your family, you might love spending time on the porch, but what this study showed was that for many Americans, the majority of our homes most often go unused. So think hard about what type of home you want to raise your family in.
Because when you live in an optimal house, most often a smaller home than what’s portrayed on HGTV, we genuinely are maximizing its utility. Large homes, whether you like it or not, require more time to maintain and upkeep. And this is even if you were to outsource a lot of the activities. Your home has a large backyard. You need to manage the gardening service to come and clean it on a weekly basis.
Your home has a large kitchen. You need more time to maintain the different cabinets and drawers of stuff. It may feel weird to choose a smaller place to live even when you can afford a larger place, but looking at it from the lens of time helps us reframe what is most important to us.
04 - Time-Saving Items
For my wife and I, this really comes into play with tech devices like computers and phones. We live in a digital age where we are spending more time on our devices than ever. Many of us make our living behind a computer screen. Then we entertain ourselves through our iPads. And we use our phones to help us navigate when we drive. And we know the frustration that comes with trying to function with a slow phone or a slow computer.
From a financial perspective, replacing our phones or computers when they slow down may seem a little careless. However, again when we look at it from the lens of saving time, it makes perfect sense. Just imagine you waiting 5 seconds every time you open a new program on your computer. You multiply this over a period of a day, a week, and the year you could be talking about hours, if not days, of your time being wasted waiting.
For my wife and I, given that we spend so much of our time on digital devices, we don’t hesitate too much to upgrade or replace our gear when we start to notice them slowing down.
05 - Time Saving Services
For me, once our family had grown, house cleaning became one of these services. You can judge me all you want, but I pay for a home cleaning service. Weird as it sounds, I actually enjoy cleaning and organizing. It’s a therapeutic activity for me to tidy up my desk and vacuum my room. But with two young kids and my aging parents living with us, keeping the house continually clean to the standard I like would take me an extra 2 to 3 hours every week. So I gladly spend money to have someone come in every month to do a deep cleaning of everything—carpet, bathroom, kitchen, etc.
The first few times felt a little weird, but as much as this sounds like an elitist, I don’t know if I can go back to not having it anymore. It saves me tremendous time, and they do a much better job than I could ever do. So if you can afford it, take a look at buying services that could save you time.
Some other common ways are grocery delivery and rideshare services, and I’ve seen some families even hire a part-time chef to come in and cook meals for them for the week. If you aren’t used to it, it definitely might feel weird to spend money on some of these services, but when you look at it from the lens of saving and buying back more time, it could be a tremendous value add to your life.
06 - Simplify Investments
When we have a complex portfolio with a lot of different funds, we add additional work to our plate. The need to rebalance. The need to log into different accounts. The need to see if everything is on track. But when we have a simple 2 or 3-fund portfolio with one single investment firm, we are saving time by not having to manage an overly complex portfolio.
I know that, at times, the math works in favor of a more complex portfolio. Having a bit more international funds or having a bit more mid-cap funds to increase our long-term returns. However, remember that every complexity comes with a cost. Cost that we can’t see, but cost in time. So consider that next time you are thinking about adding another variable to your investment portfolio.
07 - Value Your Time
In the spirit of saving money, many people also waste too much time trying to find the cheapest prices, whether by driving out of the way for the least-expensive gas or driving to multiple stores for slightly lower prices.
Whenever I go to Costco, I’m boggled by the crazy long lines for gas. I think every time that people must know something I don’t. But when I do the math in my head, I shake my head, amazed by people’s willingness to wait 30 minutes to save $10 on gas. I personally believe that we would be happier if we spent a little more money and spared ourselves the trouble.
And I also see this often with people booking trips. In the spirit of saving money, I have friends who are willing to jump on a 5 AM flight or 3 connections before they arrive at their destination. And mind you, they are traveling with young children like myself. I recommend that people think really hard about whether the extra traveling fatigue is worth the money saved. Value your time and pay a little extra.
