How Your Tight Budget Can Be Time-Consuming
If you want to reach your financial goals, you will need to set aside some contingency money.
If you want to reach your time-based goals, whether it’s “finishing work by 5:00 pm” or “writing a 50,000 word novel in November,” you need to set aside time for both work and the unexpected things that get in your way. work.
This in itself is elementary. (An occasional impulse buy is less likely to undermine your financial goals than spending more than you expected ; an hour of procrastination has less impact on your time- based goals than a big, time-consuming task you just added to your day. )
But what’s really interesting is how these two budgets – time and money – interact with each other.
If you don’t have a shortage of financial budget, you are wasting time.
If you don’t have a shortage of time budgets, you are wasting money.
This is what I mean:
If you’re so committed to a financial goal that you try to make the most of every penny you have, you end up doing things like spending an hour online looking for the best laundry detergent deal – or, if you really want to save that by spending even more time online evaluating the costs and benefits of creating your own.
If you’re so eager to make the most of every hour that you don’t build any free hours into your schedule, you end up doing things like ordering a bunch of new clothes because you don’t have time to wash the clothes you already have (and you there is not even time to send them to wash).
This is different from, say, not making enough money to create that kind of weakness in your life. When I just graduated from college and worked as a salesperson, I only took the bus during off-peak hours because saving a few blocks a day was worth the extra hassle.
There are times when the least expensive option is the only reasonable option.
There are also times when you need to start asking yourself, “How can I balance my long term financial goals with my short and long term goals in life?”
And one of the keys to balancing work and life is to have some weakness in both your finances and your schedule.
Otherwise, the rope will be too tight and you will not be able to stay on it, and you will either fall on the side where you spend a lot of extra money, or on the one where you spend a lot of extra time.