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Trading Time for Money

nicolasbouliane.com

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Re: Trading Time for Money

#11

Post by sdenton4 »

cko wrote: post #10
Thorentis wrote: post #8

> By comparison, my grocery bill is 5€ a day. Do you live on rice and beans? That sounds like you're trading enjoyment for money. We (2 adults) spend about US$150 a week on groceries, and still eat out about once a week. Those groceries include three meals a day, with the leftovers of the night before being taken for lunch the next day. How on earth do people eat healthily and only spend $5 a day?

Rice, beans, pasta, oats, eggs, nuts, chicken thighs, tomatoes, paprika, onions, potatoes, olive oil, etc. All quite cheap. Requires a bit of initial thought and planning, and maybe experimenting with ingredients. Carbs and fat are both cheap, and protein can be in the form of chicken and eggs. Vegetables are kinda expensive so I go with mostly broccoli, cabbage, and stuff from the Asian supermarket. As for groceries…

And you can get even cheaper kraut for the price of a head of cabbage and a bit of salt...

Re: Trading Time for Money

#12

Post by NiceWayToDoIT »

For a long time I had an idea that "A real salary is what is left after expenses" so if you earn monthly £2000 but your expenses are £1500 then £500 is your salary. If you earn £1500 but your expenses are £500 effectively you earn £1000 month or more than those that are paid more.

So, solution is to earn more or learn how to live more frugal? Of course it is not possible to reduce some expenses, and some expenses are in % (as taxes) so more you earn you will pay more.

At one point you could get to the point you do not think how much are your expenses, but for most of the people until that time you will realized that you sold so much time that your life has passed in front of your eyes.

Anyhow, it is good advice to find something you love and do it, as often 300 hours of unpaid hobby can give more joy and satisfaction than, all the money in of the best paid job in the world you could earn during that same time.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#13

Post by nicbou »

Thorentis wrote: post #8

> By comparison, my grocery bill is 5€ a day. Do you live on rice and beans? That sounds like you're trading enjoyment for money. We (2 adults) spend about US$150 a week on groceries, and still eat out about once a week. Those groceries include three meals a day, with the leftovers of the night before being taken for lunch the next day. How on earth do people eat healthily and only spend $5 a day?

Two or three square meals a day with a lot of meat and cheese. I am not careful about price at all, but I do cook from scratch. Base ingredients are usually cheap.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#14

Post by nicbou »

aphroz wrote: post #9

I would probably do what I am doing for a living if I wasn't getting paid for it tho

Me too, but I'd skip a few meetings and choose more interesting projects. My job nearly killed my passion for programming.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#15

Post by Emma_Goldman »

Thorentis wrote: post #8

> By comparison, my grocery bill is 5€ a day. Do you live on rice and beans? That sounds like you're trading enjoyment for money. We (2 adults) spend about US$150 a week on groceries, and still eat out about once a week. Those groceries include three meals a day, with the leftovers of the night before being taken for lunch the next day. How on earth do people eat healthily and only spend $5 a day?

I'm from the UK but while I was doing my PhD I spent the equivalent of US$30-40 a week on food. It's very easy, vegetables and staple carbohydrates - pasta, rice and potatoes - are all inexpensive, and I'm a vegetarian so I bought pulses, beans, eggs, soy and nuts for protein. You just buy what you strictly need, and nothing more. It does come at the expense of some enjoyment, but I still spend no more than US$50 a week now - even though I don't really have to think about the cost of my groceries anymore. US$150 seems high to me, I'd struggle to spend that much with my partner if I tried?

Re: Trading Time for Money

#16

Post by quickthrower2 »

This might relate to the “look at cash flows not profit” type thinking. Paying people with your post tax money is often expensive. Also paying someone to do my dishes so I can code more is in theory effective, but my brain might be tired and doing dishes myself might be the optimal thing from a humanistic point of view

Re: Trading Time for Money

#17

Post by devtosales »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #12

For a long time I had an idea that "A real salary is what is left after expenses" so if you earn monthly £2000 but your expenses are £1500 then £500 is your salary. If you earn £1500 but your expenses are £500 effectively you earn £1000 month or more than those that are paid more. So, solution is to earn more or learn how to live more frugal? Of course it is not possible to reduce some expenses, and some expenses are…

Can’t trade joy for a house or clothes for the kids.

... or 5 star holidays along the Mediterranean.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#18

Post by keiferski »

Analyses like this just make me think Basic Income will radically shake up civilization more than most people realize. In particular, it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money. This reason alone may explain some of the hostility toward implementing even a rudimentary form of UBI.

Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismissed or ignored as "irrelevant" by a significant amount of people. It would be fantastic if we evaluated the worth of an activity on its beauty, meaning, or another hundred adjectives other than how much money we're losing by doing it.

There is also a pretty robust history of academic literature arguing that culture, art, religion, and pretty much everything else arises from leisure time. Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Pieper is a good read on this.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#19

Post by xupybd »

nicbou wrote: post #5
dilippkumar wrote: post #3

So roughly, the author is saying something like: if ( outsourcing_cost * alpha > opportunity_cost ) { outsource(); } and discusses how that alpha should be calculated. The author also mentions some side benefits of doing some tasks and getting better at them. Does HN have any thoughts about living a smaller life by doing fewer things and having more time to just live and enjoy life? If spending time figuring out how…

> wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier, doubly so if you are also fighting other battles. Sometimes there is a solution, but it's just not attainable for everyone. > are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements? I didn't want to make this post about my own l…

Any chance of you going into more detail about your website? I love those success stories.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#20

Post by simonbarker87 »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #12

For a long time I had an idea that "A real salary is what is left after expenses" so if you earn monthly £2000 but your expenses are £1500 then £500 is your salary. If you earn £1500 but your expenses are £500 effectively you earn £1000 month or more than those that are paid more. So, solution is to earn more or learn how to live more frugal? Of course it is not possible to reduce some expenses, and some expenses are…

The extreme savings/retire early website/guy (can’t remember the name and googling is failing me) essentially uses this for working out how early you can retire by focussing on the percentage of your take home that can be saved/invested rather than out right figures. It’s the thing we (my wife and I) focus on, the percentage left over as discretionary money to be saved, invested or spent as we see fit that matters the most to us.
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