Things Cost Hours, Not Dollars
College was the last time in my life that I worked on an hourly wage basis. When I graduated from Miami University (of Oxford, Ohio: “MIAMI WAS A UNIVERSITY BEFORE FLORIDA WAS A STATE) and started my career, I got paid a salary once a month. As the years progressed, I lost any sort of memory of what it was like to be paid by the hour—I just got a block of money at one time at the end of the month and I lost an appreciation of the value of an hour of my work time.
Fast forward many years—to 2018 when I started my own business, one where I have an hourly rate for my services. That hourly rate math has made me radically change how I view EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION I make.
I took my daughter back to school shopping recently—and every time we checked out, I would do the mental math—those pairs of jeans and t-shirts and shorts cost an hour and a half of my hard work. The dinner Tim and I went to the other night to celebrate something—two hours of my work (two hours of work equaled two hours of dinner and the steak was REALLY good….worth it!) Less exciting—15 minutes of my work to replace non-functioning Apple chargers (seriously, I think I’ve owned 1019288383 of them over the past 10 years, it’s ludicrous.)
Even if you get paid a salary—you STILL have an hourly rate. I really recommend that you spend the three minutes to calculate it and start thinking about purchases through that lens. It’s a game changer for me in deciding if something is worth it, and I hope it will help you also.