I love saving money. And I have the luxury of having time in my life since I don’t work anymore, so I have been known to go into great length to save money. We all know that time is money and instead of spending hours making our own toothpaste we should make extra money and stop sweating the small stuff. I want to share a few examples of occasions where I got a case of toothpaste-itis but I swear, it wasn’t just about money.
The garden
with automatic watering and all, it looked promising…
Here in Guatemala, vegetables are ridiculously cheap. When I report my grocery shopping to Mr CBB every week he is always in awe. So why start a garden? Every morning, I spend maybe half an hour taking off the leaves that fell from other trees, and watering my crop. After a couple of months, it is a real disaster. Nothing apart from a bunch of coriander and a few leaves of spinach has been harvested and eaten. Basil was brought already grown, and has rooted fine but anything I have sowed hasn’t grown.
Because it has rained so much, then the sun came out to burn anything that had dared survive, and the hens feasted on sprouting seeds, most of my crop is dead.
30 hours of my time over two months, at a reasonable $20 per hour equate to $600, which is my veggie budget for the year. The grocery budget is around $200 per month, and I would say $50 goes to fruits and vegetables. Add to that the seeds, water, the work it took for the handyman to prepare the soil…
Not only do I have nothing to show for my efforts, but a $0.4lb of tomatoes doesn’t justify my endeavor.
The reason behind it: I want to grow my food. To proudly say it came from the garden. To know what products if any were poured over the garden. And I will keep trying. Money is not the reason.
Wendy’s
When we toured the US on a motorcycle back in 2011, we occasionally stopped at Wendy’s for lunch. That time I ordered a burger that was $1 plus tax and was charged $1.25 plus tax. I don’t remember the exact amount but it was to the tune of a quarter overcharge. The smart staff took about ten minutes to realize the error, after arguing it was the price including tax on my receipt, then refunded my money, but didn’t change it in the system and went on overcharging other customers by 25%.
The reason behind it: I hate things unfair. While I can happily pay for a $15 burger, a burger announced at $1 has to cost $1.
It has happened to me a number of times to ask for a price rectification but not once did the person say they would adjust it permanently in the system and it drives me mad because I do take the time to point it for the benefit of other people and employees don’t give a crap.
The night bus
Guatemala City is 8-9 hours away. The first time I went, I took the luxury bus. We left at 10pm, arrived at 630pm and I didn’t sleep most of the night because the AC over my head was so cold I had to put all my clothes for the week on. Now I take the cheap bus.
The reason behind it: The cheaper bus has no AC, it leaves at 9pm which I don’t mind since I always get to the bus station around 6pm so BF doesn’t drive back to the house by night, and it arrives at 730pm which I don’t mind since no one is up at 630 to pick me up, while at 730 I can have breakfast with a friend. The seats are slightly less comfortable but having no AC allows a better night sleep. The two extra hours are hours of sleep or rest that I would spend waiting at the bus station if I took the luxury service. I can get some writing done without fear that a robber will enter the bus station and steal my laptop.
The maid
We have a handyman, and as you may know by now, he is not the sharpest cookie in the box. Having him around means you have to explain every single little thing he has to do (or he may kill someone), and once he gets going he is slow and steady, so if you need a quick fix, it is usually better to avoid the mental exhaustion of supervision and do it yourself. The only thing he does inside the house is clean once a week, I do all the rest.
A maid would cook for us, wash our clothes that I hand-wash for now, clean, dust, and have BF stop complaining when I do not perform all those tasks to a 4 stars hotel standard. Labor is cheap here. Part time, it would cost at most $100, and $200 full time. Worth the marital bliss you say?
The reason behind it: I don’t want someone in my house. I’d rather be the maid for now. I have very few belongings that I value very much and replacing any of it because the maid broke it or stole it would be a real pain. I want to lay in bed while I write if the morning is cold, not having the maid hush me out to clean the room. I want my privacy, not the whole village to know the color of my underwear. I don’t want to boss someone around for simple tasks I can get done in 30 minutes a day. But again, at $20/h my 30 minutes a day are worth $300 per month.
All those examples do not make sense. My time should be too valuable to bother trying again in the case of the garden, or making things right in the case of Wendy’s. Or cleaning floors, or sitting two hours more on a bus.
You can call me cheap, for doing all this, but you won’t find me
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ripping open the toothpaste to get an extra wash out of it
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yellow mellowing it
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rationing the TP
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melting the leftover wax from 100 candles to get one candle
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making my own laundry detergent
- driving 10 miles to get cheaper gas
- going to three supermarkets to compare prices and get part of my shop for the week at each.
- Carrying buckets of stones to build my house and save on a $200/month worker’s salary.
It doesn’t go with my values. I am willing to pay for my time in the case of the supermarket, and prefer to make it a one stop shop. The rest of examples may save me more than the quarter from Wendy’s but life is not meant to be lived counting how much toothpaste you use. Driving further for gas is plain nonsense.
I save a lot of money by making my own food. I bake and cook from scratch. This way I save about 300$ a month. I do spend more time in the kitchen than others, but I think it`s worth my time.
Probably, and you can control the quality of ingredients too. Worth it in my opinion.
Cooking saves me a lot of money at the expense of time. It would be so much faster (and maybe even cheaper) if I just loaded up on TV dinners and microwaved one every night. Instead I spend the time cooking, and the associated time shopping.
I would love a maid because I hate having to clean, but like a clean apartment.
I might try to grow some vegetables on my little balcony this year. Not to save money, because it won’t but just to see if I can do it.
It is really fun to grow veggies, cherry tomatoes, basil.. are perfect for a balcony.
A lot of people think that coupon is a waste of time v.s. money saved. But after doing it we’ve noticed that we were able to knock a big part of our grocery bill down. We’ll go to different stores, but they’re all on the way home from work for at least one of us.
I do think that some people do things to save money to avoid working the extra hour or so and it’s a bit of a pet peeve, especially the gas.
I don’t have coupons here but I guess I would just use the ones from my main store. it does take a lot of time to clip, organize, check dates… if you stockpile the extreme way it could be worth 1-2 big coupon runs a season and spend the other months emptying the pile.
Some great points. I am totally with you on the fairness bit – Side helpings of veg at my work cost 15p (subsidised) and I always argue if I get overcharged on a portion!
And you jam the queue and everyone is annoyed because you argue for 15p!
I like the vegetable garden story. We put in a garden every year and maybe it pays for itself, maybe it doesn’t, I haven’t done the math and don’t plan on doing it. You can’t beat the taste of freshly grown vegetables and besides, gardening can be a therapeutic activity for the mind. How do you put a value on that?
It is a healthy hobby. You could add the value of whatever you would be doing instead, which probably would include spending money.
Aside from lettuces/herbs, I think it probably works out cheaper NOT growing your own for many items, but like you, I genuinely enjoy it! Well, sort of. Have to say that being a busy renter who moves a lot I haven’t had a lot of success (sometimes I can barely manage to clean the bathroom once a week let alone water plants daily). When we buy a house I definitely want to put more effort into a garden.
it is a relaxing activity. Unless you get really good at it or have a huge piece of land, it will probably not be worth the trouble, but so rewarding!
I regularly teach my daughter every night, instead of getting a tutor for her. I save money on that at the same time I’m having quality time with my family after work.
that sounds like a nice way to bond with her, I wouldn’t stand my mother in a 30ft radius when I was doing homework but didn’t need a tutor either. If you work well, totally worth your time I think.
Thank you. Yes it is priceless to witness she is improving with her study.
You sound like you have the same gardening skills that we have 😀 I love that you argued about the cost of your burger. That sounds just like something Holly would have done too!
It was not rush hour, the place was empty, for my defense. At lunch time I would have said nothing but would be bugged!
Good points Pauline! We’re the same exact way when it comes to gardening. We’d save money by jut getting what we want at the store, but the time spent is well worth it. We get to be outside, do some work, teach the kids about where food really comes from and we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
”where food really comes from” reminds me of a comic book of a mother showing her kids a fish, and the kids would imagine a fish the form of a crumbed rectangle, with an eye. With more processed food we just imagine it comes from the shop!
Pauline, I have learned from your posts over time that while you love saving money, you are not going to do silly things and deprive yourself. I get it, and of course it totally makes sense. I think driving 10 miles and burning gas in order to get extra gas is silliness, for sure. If you have read “Your Money or Your Life” and have done the exercise where you add up all the money you have made in your entire life (NOT easy)…you will come to the roundabout figure of what your life energy is worth. Once you have that Life Energy #, it is easy to decide whether your time is, indeed, worth certain things. It has helped me greatly.
Good idea about the life energy, since I don’t work much anymore I tend to lower my hourly number when considering if something is worthy of my time.
By the way…”yellow mellowing it”. That took me a full day to get….just got it. Hilarious!
🙂 forgive my French, I don’t know if there is a verb for that!
I am of the same mindset.
The only thing I’d say is different would be that I may do things ANYWAY even if it makes sense to pay someone for it. Such as growing my vegetables — may be a fruitless endeavour (literally), but if it’s the only way I can get fresher food that doesn’t taste watery, I am going to give it a shot.
You get added value off the fresh organic crop you grew. It is not just a matter of comparing supermarket prices. I want to keep trying with the garden, now that the heavy rains are over, just hope the sun doesn’t burn it all down…
Mr. PoP bought and restored a 35-year-old lawn mower this year. (It’s older than we are!) By the end of it, he had spent as much as he would have on a new mower, but he enjoyed the hours tinkering and rebuilding the engine and swears up and down that it’ll now last longer than a POS mower from the hardware store.
that is surely going to last forever! it is the hope with our care, for some reason they don’t make things as sturdy now.
I always try and think of the time factor and any other opportunities that I would be missing. For example, if the store accidentally charged me an extra $2 on my receipt and I’m already at home, I will most likely just take the loss if the place is too far away.
I wouldn’t go back either. But if I shop there every day would bring the receipt back on the next day.
I’ve bee the opposite: When I was a very busy advisor, I’d pay ANY amount of money to do easy tasks, because cash was plentiful and my time was worth so, so much more. I’d pay someone $10 to park my car at a restaurant (something I wouldn’t do in a million years, now!), because the extra 10 minutes at the office on the phone would pay me $1,000.
I would pay for valet in that case as well, and many things that make my life easier today I do pay for. But spending one hour making my own pizza is something I enjoy more than ordering delivery for example.
My spouse used to joke that we had a $40 pepper, the first time I attempted to grow anything on our balcony! We bought pots, soil, seeds and fertilizer…. and barely got a single thing out of it! Mostly a tiny little green pepper… and that plant was a gift from a friend!
I completely agree with you regarding the hamburger pricing. My friends had a lot of problems with that when they were in southeast Asia. It’s one thing to say a price that’s higher than locals pay, it’s another to not give back the correct change.
$40 pepper is better than a $600 bunch of coriander! thankfully the start up costs are low. But the handyman must be thinking ”I worked so hard to build that garden, carrying soil, digging and now the lady can’t grow a thing!”.
Do you get good crops now?
Yellow-mellowing it… that literally made me laugh at my desk! I used to change the oil in my car, but I have found a quick lube place that does it for $10 more than it costs me and they do it much quicker since I would have to put my car on jack stands. On top of that they don’t try to up-sell me on things I don’t need for my car.
happy to make you laugh Brian! I was told for a good oil change you needed to let the car sit for a while so the oil drips properly out, the last drops bringing the more bits of whatever is in the oil blocking the filter. I don’t mind doing the change myself since in the middle of nowhere going to a garage costs $30 of gas plus time… although here they change just for the price of the oil.
I have always disagreed with the notion that free time has some inherent monetary value. If I could get $20 for an hour that I “wasted,” I would have been doing that instead of “wasting” it. But the fact remains, I can’t work 24 hours per day, or even the 15-18 that I’m awake. At least not on a consistent basis. The hours I’m not working are not worth anything, at least not in monetary terms.
The money I made last year blogging, divided by the number of hours I put in comes out to about 75 cents per hour.
Christmas dinner last year took approximately 5 hours to prepare and clean up afterward. At your $20/hr rate, that works out to a $100 for 4 people. By the time-is-money argument, it would have been cheaper to go to a steakhouse.
I know we aren’t productive 100% of the time, but you also need relaxing times during the day. Having a lot of free time, I don’t consider as much the time value as the money involved. Usually anything over $50 I consider to see if it is worth my time. A quick $15 fix I tend to pay for instead of spending 2 hours in tutorials, unless it is a repeat item like car maintenance that I can perform over and over again.
That’s nice that you have a garden! Someday when we have a house again, we are going to have a garden. That is very important to us.
mmm it will be nice some day, hopefully… now I am ashamed even to take a pic!
I once tried to groom our dog at home. I bought some fancy clippers and expensive shampoo. 4 hours later he looked so terrible I cried (literally). I felt so embarrassed for him looking so terrible we bought him a new coat to cover the damage. All and all I spend about $100 for the clippers $10 for the shampoo and $30 for the coat. Plus 4 hours of time. Since then we’ve decided that the cost of the groomer is well worth it (puppy is thankful too).
haha I can picture you trying and the poor dog standing there impatient, a recipe for disaster! For specific things like this, unless you have a neighbor ready to do it in exchange for another service, it is better to ask a pro.
I tried this before as well. Exactly once. My dog did not take kindly to the whole experience & the money to pay the groomer is WELL worth it 🙂
Ha, ha! I love this one, Pauline. To answer your question, yes, we did things that didn’t make financial sense; not at first anyway. John, kept mending our previous dish-washer and complaining that his time is too expensive to do that – I didn’t buy it. My argument is that out time is expensive when someone is paying for it. When we veg infront of the TV our time is not expensive – just wasted given the quality most of the time. I won this argument and then the machine completely broke down so we have a new one.
Also I learned to cook and bake. Seen as making straight forward financial sense it is a complete failure – at my rates we are talking an exlusive chef here and a chef I am not; the best a managed is a cook. But…I discovered that cooking relaxes me and feels good; making things with your hands is good for me. So, I still cook and bake, instead of watching TV.
true, it is all about priorities, if you are watching TV, you can blog, saw, cook, clean at the same time for free. Re baking, I just found this site and made my first loaf of bread, super excited!
I love to cook, but if we can afford a maid to do the everyday cooking and cleaning while I can just cook when I want, I would do it. But as you know in the US it is not practical for middle class folks. In India the labor is very cheap. Most of the middle class families have a maid who comes 1-2 hrs a day to wash, clean the vessels (we don’t have dishwashers yet, I don’t think it will work anyway with water scarcity) and tidy up the house. My mother still does everything herself eventhough she has a full time job that takes most of her day.
I had a garden too. I did reasonably well, but it was nowhere cost effective. I would have spent equal amount of money growing the veggies as I would have spent on groceries. So my hours of time spent was essentially worth $0. But as you said, it is a great feeling to know that its something I grew.
I used to evaluate my time vs money spent before going the DIY route when I was working full time. But with me quitting, these days I feel guilty to spend the money when I could do it myself, even though it means I am wasting my time on something that will net me 20c an hr. I have to train myself to change that attitude.
Having a maid chop, dice, peel, cut, while you just play chef like the ones on TV show is quite nice, and to handle cleaning afterwards of course. But I would have to train her for a few weeks and am not very patient…
If it’s any consolation Pauline, I don’t see any of your examples as being miserly or financially driven, I see the principles clearly behind them.
A local restaurant here argued the toss with me when I picked them up on a £1 overcharge. As with you and your Wendy’s burger, my motive was purely principle fuelled. I may have looked like a skinflint, but I simply wanted to be fairly charged.
Neither would I want a cleaner because I too value my privacy; and if my garden was big enough I would appreciate the therapeutic appeal of growing my own veg.
These things, like you say, cost more in time to do yourself; but nevertheless the principles driving those actions are even more valuable.
Great post…You’ve consoled me with the knowledge I’m not the only one who thinks that way.
Thank you Gareth, glad I am not alone!
I work on my vehicles even though it doesn’t save me any time. The reason I do it is two fold. I save money, but I also learn a lot about maintenance and mechanic work.
I enjoy learning about mechanics too. Because I have traveled about 50K miles on a motorcycle and problems always seem to happen when there is no mechanic around…
I followed you over here from Tony’s site, and I am excited to be here. Wow, great post. I do a lot to save money, but I’m not sure there is anything that isn’t also time-efficient. I am a freak about having time to exercise and write.
I wish I could answer your question more specifically, but for now I will just say hello and I am excited to be here.
Hi Tammy, welcome and thank you for your kind words.
I agree with you on the maid. While the idea of one sometimes sounds great, I don’t want someone nosing around my house, and I’m sure it’s human nature to do just that. I also don’t want to lose something and wonder if I actually lost it or if the maid stole it
I would certainly be curious if I were a maid!
I understand the premise behind your desire to garden and it is the same for me. I know what I grow is organic and might cost me a bit more than items at the grocery store but I did it. The taste is much better as well. We go to a few shops for 2 reasons, 1- they are on the same street, 2- unadvertised deals and coupons but we don’t go out of our way to do this. We can also price match which helps if we only want to go to one shop instead of 2. Most big stores in Canada have the scanning code of practice meaning that is an item scans higher at the cash then the ticketed price at the shelf you get it for free up to $10. I’ve seen them give us items for free but not bother to change it in the system although it’s not like I stand there and watch what they do. I suppose we could go back the next day and get the same item to see if it was changed and get it free again if it’s not. It’s up to them to make the change but many people get screwed because they don’t pay attention. We are all frugal in our own ways and value our time differently. I do cut open my toothpaste and I don’t make my own laundry soap yet but I do make my own fabric spray because I’m not paying $7 for something I can make for $0.30. As for the privacy and cleaning that’s personal opinion but I know that I wouldn’t be paying anyone, that’s just me. I value my privacy and it’s no big deal to clean. Great post
there is a site in the uk called mysupermarket where you can just enter what you plan on buying and it will compare the cost of your cart at tesco, sainsbury’s, morrissons… super convenient. Cool about the free items, here it just takes hours, last time they had really dry garlic but the price was lower than usual and I needed some, then it scanned normal, I had to take the girl back, show her, they called the manager… all in all a big loss of time. Pretty sure they changed the announced price instead of the scanning system!
Generally speaking, I tend to value time more than money. To a point of course, as we do need money for day-to-day living as well as retirement, etc. Obviously, as a PF blogger, I really appreciate money – but time is more precious.
That being said, there are a few occasions where I’ll try to save and not worry about time. If it’s a matter of principle to me, I’ll do it. For example, if I feel like somebody is trying to overcharge me or take advantage, I’ll drive further to go to another store to get something cheaper. But again, it’s only if I feel they’re taking advantage.
that is a big disagreement I have with my boyfriend, he would rather get overcharged and get it over with. Last time we bought some electric wire for the house, we had bought some at another shop before for $100 and this one was $130. The other shop was five minutes away but he wouldn’t go. Since we needed to go eventually because the first shop didn’t have everything we needed we got the wire for $100 otherwise he would not have gone to both.
My wife and I were considering hiring a maid the other day as in 2 hours of cleaning each week I could have made $200-$400 on the FX markets, which is a lot less than a maid costs.
wow if you are able to consistently make $200 per hour on forex you can also quit your job 🙂
Only once in my life have I ripped open a shampoo to get every last drop of it. It was strange and I don’t think I’d do it again haha.
I would too if I was out, although I just read a couple of posts from travelers who got rid of shampoo and soap and shower without, they looked just fine. Once or twice I have washed my head with soap when there was no shampoo!
Sorry, I”m still laughing over the “yellow mellowing it”. 🙂 We do have a housecleaner because she frees up time for me to be with my family. We still do the day-to-day upkeep and girls make their beds and clean their rooms, but she does the big stuff. Yes, we (and by we I mean me) could do it, but I have little free time so it is very precious to me. And I would rather spend it with my girls than scrubbing floors. So she costs me money but I get so much more back.
It makes complete sense with a busy life. Mine is less packed and since I lose my things all the time I would be too paranoid to have a cleaner around… At least when I lose something I know it was lost.
I totally should not have looked at this post hungry. That said, the food looks so unbelievably fresh. Really unbelievable! Great post, Pauline!
Pauline, the garden photo looks to be in the shade. How many hours of direct sunshine does it receive?
Hey Andrew, it gets direct sun from 8am/4pm. The sun is pretty aggressive here so I think it may be too much, and am starting growing on the terrace (more shade, and a plastic roof that protects as well) basil, lavender, mint… hoping they will start there then maybe transplant when they are stronger. Everything has sprouted so far, there is hope.
It sounds like the choices you’re making are not because of money, but because of principle, or values, or convenience, or leisure and interest. In that regard, I think you’re making fantastic choices.
Sure, it doesn’t make sense to argue over a $.25 upcharge for a burger. But if you think that you are getting scammed, and you want to see justice and fairness being done… Or if you want to save other people from that upcharge… Then it’s not about the money, it’s about principles and values. I think that’s excellent.
Thank you Paula, it is about values indeed. A business is getting my money in exchange for me expecting to get what I paid for, and I don’t like breaches of contracts.