Yes, you read it well. When you think about currency, probably you start thinking about USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, CHF, CAD… or, depending on your age, even cryptocurrency or solid gold.
But they are just a medium of exchange for trading, because how you earn money? Trading your time. So, basically: you buy by spending TIME.
Hence, a new way of thinking: evaluate the cost of things in hours, not in currency.
This is not merely a theory for philosophers, but indeed a practical concept. Let’s say you are planning the future, enjoying the moment, walking on the street, or just browsing the Internet and suddenly it happens: you feel like you need new stuff.
While deciding if you have really to buy it, if you need that object or have a strong desire for that account subscription, just stop and wait a little bit. Ask yourself a simple question: how many hours of work it costs to me? No rocket science, here’s the simple calculation:
Let be Y (year) your annual income (net worth). Supposing you have a standard job, you work approximately 2.000 hours per year (40 hours per week x 52 weeks, let’s be simple without considering vacations, extra hours, and so on, but obviously the average depends on the Country). So, every H (hour) you earn, on average, H = Y/2000 money. Now let be C (cost) the price of the thing you want to buy. How many H (hours) you need for reaching that C (cost)? Easily C/H.
Still to difficult? No problem, here’s an example:
Let’s suppose you earn $30.000 per year. So, Y = 30.000$
Every hour you earn 30.000$ / 2000h. So, H = 15$/h.
If the thing you’re thinking to buy costs $100 (C = 100$), for that thing you’re spending:
C/H = 100$ / 15$/h = 6,7 hours.
Hours of what? Hours of your life, sacrifice, some difficult and stressful times, time without your beloved ones, and time that you can spend doing what you like most, like also learning more to improve yourself.
The final line. Then: can’t decide whether to buy the new $800 or $2,000 laptop? In addition to trying to understand what you need (in terms of features), try to predict what will become, in broad terms, the cost per hour of use: are you going to use this object just occasionally in your spare time, or is it something that you use every day? In addition, if with that laptop you will be able to do everything you want (study/work activities and related to your various interests, be it graphics, music or much more), then OK. Otherwise, try to consider again your choice. It applies to luxury cars and to everyday expenses.
Are you considering that you buy by spending time every time you open your wallet?
[…] Molta gente si preoccupa di accumulare ricchezze, ma Whillans et al. 2016 hanno affermato che dare priorità al tempo anziché al denaro è stato associato a maggiore felicità. Eppure (Hershfield et al. 2016) molta più gente dà più valore ai soldi rispetto al tempo (in quello studio, era 69% contro 31%): anche in tal caso, quelli che davano più importanza al tempo hanno realizzato punteggi più alti nella scala di felicità. Anziché affannarvi in lavoretti secondari o fare straordinari non richiesti nella speranza di bonus e promozioni, valutate invece l’opportunità di scegliere lavori che lascino più tempo libero. E ricordate che il tempo è denaro, ma esattamente nel senso opposto a quello comunemente associato, quindi il denaro è tempo, come ne avevo già parlato. […]