Thursday 3 November 2016

Money is Time

As an American kid growing up in the 1980's, I heard the expression ‘Time is Money’ a lot. It was the catch phrase, or perhaps label, of a certain class of professional, career driven, movers and shakers that for many people defined the USA at the time. It was not, however, an outlook that I ever subscribed to. For most of my life, I haven’t been that concerned with making money. Sure, having money was better than the alternative, but at the highest levels, I just wasn’t that interested in most of the things that I thought money could buy.

Over the last year though, my whole vision of personal wealth and finance has turned dramatically. I realized something that any beginning student of logic or mathematics should have been able to point out. If Time = Money, then the opposite must also be true, Money = Time.

I am forty years old, but I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say ‘Money is Time’, despite the fact that we all understand this to be true. We all know that if we had enough money, we could quit our day jobs and do whatever we wanted to do. We all know that if you manage to save enough money over your working life, you should have enough money to retire. In both cases, you are using your money to essentially ‘buy’ time. How much is your time worth? How much would you rather have more time than most of the things you actually spend money on?

I'll leave this with you for the moment, dear reader.

* * *

This week, I have made a small, but I hope important change in my life. Looking over my finances, and factoring in the money I have made as a writer over the last couple of years (mostly from Frostgrave), I have decided to go down to 4 days a week at my job. I am going to use this extra time both to spend more time with my family (and help out my wife with our two young children) and to devote a specific bit of time every week to writing. It is my hope that freelance writing will be able to slowly replace my other work and reach a point where it can support me and my family nearly completely. 

It is a small step, but I hope it is just the first on a long journey. We shall see.

17 comments:

  1. I wish you all the best down that road. You are definitely right : money is time. Spend it well and keep writing !

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  2. That is great Joe. Congratulations on being able to slow down your day job a bit and good luck with the freelancing!!!

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  3. I couldn't agree more . If you enjoy what you do , are able to afford it . It's a win win . Good luck !! .

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  4. Thoughtful stuff......definitely agree we all need to find that balance ( not sure I have). As a father we all have to decide whether to give our children time or stuff, one is far more valueable than the other as it is finality for each of us ! Make the most of your extra day 😀

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  5. I wish you all the best with this endeavour! :)

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  6. Well done, I think you are spot on.

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  7. Absolutely. As soon as the kids grow up and move out, I'm cutting work down to cover my needs and wants, not mine plus hers plus hers.

    It may be ten years away, but hey, that's only ten years.

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  8. Sounds like a good plan - best wishes for the freelancing.

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  9. Good luck, Joe. I'll definitely spend some of my nest egg buying whatever you write for Frostgrave. The question I find myself pondering often is - will I accrue enough money before I run out of time? I'm also forty, have an outlook similar to yours, but find that a certain amount of money also buys you security from worrying about things like emergency car repairs, etc. Having been very poor as a young man, I fully understand the stress it can cause.

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  10. spot on re: situation analysis

    conclusion: not sure the right answer / balance

    but: your work [so far] has brought joy to many...cheers (and thank u)!

    :)

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  11. I think that is fantastic and very brave. One of my personal heroes has a saying "You can't eat money and you can't buy time" which has helped me with keeping perspective on the old work life balance. Good luck!

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  12. True!
    Good that you've figured it out.
    Life is to short to waste it (but what is wasting is sort of up to you)

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  13. Well done. Great choice! I hope you find satisfaction in what you have plenty of and satisfaction in what you are short of.

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  14. I did that very thing this year! Now I work 4 days a week, which gives me time to catch up on my reading, have lunch with my family every week, and host RPG at my place on Monday evenings. I use figurines for my RPG, so the next arc of the campaign will feature Avvar barbarians in the Frostback Mountains, thanks to you! :)

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