Re: Maximizing Your Personal Resources / Surviving the Futur
Posted: 2010-06-26 02:08pm
Today I am discussing when it makes sense to pay for convenience and services you would ordinarily do yourself.
During May and June I worked 2 jobs simultaneously. That meant at least 10 hours a day working seven days a week with some days running to 12 hours or even 14. Now, consider that I need 7-8 hours of sleep, and doing the math you'll realize that that leaves a mere 2-4 hours outside of work and sleep to get anything done, including food preparation, eating, personal hygiene, etc.
Now, I don't recommend that sort of schedule long term (in fact, I have currently cut back to a "mere" 1 job and 8-10 hours of work 5 days a week) but if you find yourself in those circumstances then time management becomes extremely important. One aspect of this is figuring out how the chores get done.
Well, the Other Half took over the grocery shopping. That eliminated one chore. The time saved was used for food prep, although we pretty much stopped cooking from scratch. We've been living on a lot of sandwiches, canned vegetables, and frozen entrees. Is this a particularly healthy diet? Honestly, no - but remember, this is short term. Sandwiches made at home can be inexpensive, particularly if you watch for watch meats/cheeses are on sale a particular week. What frozen dinners we ate were dictated by what was on sale and what my food allergies restrict me to eating. If you look you can usually find entrees for $2, even $1 (the Other Half has scored $1 dinners about 4 times over the past two months - he's good at finding sales). A frozen entree supplemented with a can of vegetables, or some frozen ones reheated in the microwave, can be sufficient. This is in no way as cheap as cooking from scratch, but remember - my time was being spent earning money. If shopping/eating in this manner for a couple months could draw us out of the dire poverty we were in then it arguably is an effective use of resources provided we were still cautious about cost. Of course, shopping in a cost-efficient manner for these things takes time - hence, the Other Half was sent to the store with shopping instructions after we had conferred on menu planning.
That left laundry. I don't own a washer. Laundry means 1.5 to 2 hours sitting in a retail establishment getting my clothes down. Keep in mind, most days I only had 2-4 hours outside of work and sleep to do anything, and those might not fall during business hours. Well, after confronting a pile of work clothes that were sweaty and muddy I finally considered something I never thought I would - I paid someone else to do my laundry! Here's the deal - I could drop off 8-10 pounds of laundry (that's about 4-5 kg for you metric folks) at the local laundromat and they would wash-dry-fold the items for $8-10 (this is all based on weight, by the way). Same day service. So... I could spend 2 hours to get a load or two of wash done... or spend two hours earning money. Hmm... that load of wash was $8.... two hours of work would bring in $26 dollars.
This is an illustration of assigning value to one's time.
Now, normally - working only one job 40 hours a week - I'd just go to the laundromat and catch up on my reading while doing the wash on a weekend or whatever but for two months I had no weekends and no real time off. So in these particular circumstances paying to have a load of wash so I could have clean clothes for work actually made fiscal and time management sense. I dropped the load off in the morning, picked it up on my way home from work.
Now that my work schedule is less insane I am back to doing my own laundry again, as it no longer (in my mind) makes sense to have it done for me.
The whole point of this, of course, is that sometimes it really is better to purchase a service - even if it appears a luxury to some - if it makes a marked improvement in your ability to get things done and manage your life. This is particularly true in the case of temporary overload. This overload could be due to crazy workload, a family emergency, or whatever. You do need to "run the numbers" and consider all factors, but there truly are times when such services are a very important of managing your resources, which include not only your money but your time and energy.
Oh - and by the way, after those two insane months we're no longer qualified for foodstamps (we're too well off!) and we've been ending months with more money than we started, rather than less. I am hoping that I can maintain this, preferably without having to work two jobs at the same time. However, on a temporary basis I'd consider two jobs/insane schedule again to provide some cushion for us.
On the downside - I did NOT start my garden yet. Well, my landlord does not accept zucchini for rent. While I will not have as an elaborate a garden as I had planned, or as elaborate as I had last year, I still have time to get some quick growing vegetables in. The improved cash flow is not only useful for those things requiring cash, but will allow me to make up for garden shortfalls.
More illustration of how life is a balancing act.
During May and June I worked 2 jobs simultaneously. That meant at least 10 hours a day working seven days a week with some days running to 12 hours or even 14. Now, consider that I need 7-8 hours of sleep, and doing the math you'll realize that that leaves a mere 2-4 hours outside of work and sleep to get anything done, including food preparation, eating, personal hygiene, etc.
Now, I don't recommend that sort of schedule long term (in fact, I have currently cut back to a "mere" 1 job and 8-10 hours of work 5 days a week) but if you find yourself in those circumstances then time management becomes extremely important. One aspect of this is figuring out how the chores get done.
Well, the Other Half took over the grocery shopping. That eliminated one chore. The time saved was used for food prep, although we pretty much stopped cooking from scratch. We've been living on a lot of sandwiches, canned vegetables, and frozen entrees. Is this a particularly healthy diet? Honestly, no - but remember, this is short term. Sandwiches made at home can be inexpensive, particularly if you watch for watch meats/cheeses are on sale a particular week. What frozen dinners we ate were dictated by what was on sale and what my food allergies restrict me to eating. If you look you can usually find entrees for $2, even $1 (the Other Half has scored $1 dinners about 4 times over the past two months - he's good at finding sales). A frozen entree supplemented with a can of vegetables, or some frozen ones reheated in the microwave, can be sufficient. This is in no way as cheap as cooking from scratch, but remember - my time was being spent earning money. If shopping/eating in this manner for a couple months could draw us out of the dire poverty we were in then it arguably is an effective use of resources provided we were still cautious about cost. Of course, shopping in a cost-efficient manner for these things takes time - hence, the Other Half was sent to the store with shopping instructions after we had conferred on menu planning.
That left laundry. I don't own a washer. Laundry means 1.5 to 2 hours sitting in a retail establishment getting my clothes down. Keep in mind, most days I only had 2-4 hours outside of work and sleep to do anything, and those might not fall during business hours. Well, after confronting a pile of work clothes that were sweaty and muddy I finally considered something I never thought I would - I paid someone else to do my laundry! Here's the deal - I could drop off 8-10 pounds of laundry (that's about 4-5 kg for you metric folks) at the local laundromat and they would wash-dry-fold the items for $8-10 (this is all based on weight, by the way). Same day service. So... I could spend 2 hours to get a load or two of wash done... or spend two hours earning money. Hmm... that load of wash was $8.... two hours of work would bring in $26 dollars.
This is an illustration of assigning value to one's time.
Now, normally - working only one job 40 hours a week - I'd just go to the laundromat and catch up on my reading while doing the wash on a weekend or whatever but for two months I had no weekends and no real time off. So in these particular circumstances paying to have a load of wash so I could have clean clothes for work actually made fiscal and time management sense. I dropped the load off in the morning, picked it up on my way home from work.
Now that my work schedule is less insane I am back to doing my own laundry again, as it no longer (in my mind) makes sense to have it done for me.
The whole point of this, of course, is that sometimes it really is better to purchase a service - even if it appears a luxury to some - if it makes a marked improvement in your ability to get things done and manage your life. This is particularly true in the case of temporary overload. This overload could be due to crazy workload, a family emergency, or whatever. You do need to "run the numbers" and consider all factors, but there truly are times when such services are a very important of managing your resources, which include not only your money but your time and energy.
Oh - and by the way, after those two insane months we're no longer qualified for foodstamps (we're too well off!) and we've been ending months with more money than we started, rather than less. I am hoping that I can maintain this, preferably without having to work two jobs at the same time. However, on a temporary basis I'd consider two jobs/insane schedule again to provide some cushion for us.
On the downside - I did NOT start my garden yet. Well, my landlord does not accept zucchini for rent. While I will not have as an elaborate a garden as I had planned, or as elaborate as I had last year, I still have time to get some quick growing vegetables in. The improved cash flow is not only useful for those things requiring cash, but will allow me to make up for garden shortfalls.
More illustration of how life is a balancing act.