We don’t buy things with money, we buy them with hours from our life.
Or, as Henry David Thoreau put it, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
This is a life-changing principle. When we begin to see our purchases through the lens of exchanging life, rather than dollar bills, we can better appreciate the weight of our purchases and understand their full cost.
For that reason, I thought it might be helpful to take a hard look at how much life some of our purchases actually cost us.
For the sake of conversation, let’s use the median US household income. In 2017, that number was $61,400. For simplicity sake, let’s round down to $60,000 annual income.
If your household income is $60,000, working a typical 40-hour workweek, here is how many hours of work are needed for the following purchases:
Grande Starbucks Cappuccino ($4.00) = 8 minutes of work
Pair of Wrangler Jeans ($24.99) = 50 minutes of work
Coach Brand Purse ($119.99) = 1/2 day of work
55″ FlatScreen TV ($711.00) = 3 days of work
256GB iPhone XS ($1,249) = 1 week + 2 hours of work
Dinner at a restaurant for your family of four ($80.00) = 1/3 day of work
Dinner at home for your family of four ($17.00) = 1/2 hour of work
New Living Room Furniture Set ($1,983.94) = 1 week + 3.5 days of work
2019 Ford Fusion SE Hybrid ($26,550) = 5 months + 10 days of work
2,500 square foot house (10% down payment, 30-year mortgage of monthly payments, $303,000 purchase price) = 11 years + 6 months of work
1,600 square foot house (15% down payment, 30-year mortgage of monthly payments, $196,000 purchase price) = 7 years + 2 months
Keep in mind, the amount of work needed for the items above is based on an annual salary of $60,000. If your annual salary is $30,000, the work time will be doubled. If you make $120,000/year, the measurements should be halved.
Of course, there are alternatives to exchanging our hours and lives for material possessions…
It takes just 10 minutes to tell your child a bedtime story.
45 minutes for an evening walk with your spouse.
60 minutes to help your son/daughter with homework.
Or 2 hours/month to volunteer at your local soup kitchen.
The money we earn is ours to keep and we can spend it as we wish. But it can be a helpful exercise to realize how many hours of our lives go into each purchase we make.
And it is always wise to remember we can spend our hours pursuing items of far greater value than material possessions.
Thankyou for the reminder. Some years ago I read Low Cost Living by John Harrison -it changed my life. He makes the point in the money section that with less working hours you can do some of the services you pay for. He also talks about the real rate you get paided per hour if you add in staying late at work, getting there early, work related e-mails and calls-it all add up and is hidden x
The book already sounds very interesting. I will buy one.
We buy too often for the wrong reasons, for things that won’t last. Let’s focus on the experience and the momentum instead. Bonus: this long lasting feeling of happiness can even be free!
Thank you for this article, Joshua. This perspective is super helpful.
This is a more concrete way for me to make decisions about purchases.
Did you gross or net income for your calculations?
Gross income.
The cost of buying and maintaining stuff goes up as time progresses, apart from the time it takes to compare and buy stuff. What more joy can one have with the reverse – giving away what you dont need / sharing with others !
This is an excellent reminder on where to put our time. Thank you
Amazing. Really made me think. Thanks
We embrace this philosophy as well. Here’s the trouble, though. When it comes to minimalism, which we do follow to a large extent, the idea of paying for something with the hours of your life versus getting rid of something that still has potential practical value becomes difficult.
I could pare down eight more t-shirts from my wardrobe. Or I could hang on to them because I have room to store them and it tales none of my time or money to keep them on the shelf. Or I follow a more minimalistic approach and get rid of them. If any of my 7 remaining t-shirts becomes unrepairable then I have to go to a store and spend my time and money on a replacement. Here is where the philosophy of what goods are worth in terms of time and money trumps a desire to go more bare bones minimalistic.
There is something wonderful about having an exact odd and end or extra pair of boots or backup tools that you can just dig out on the spot when your first one breaks. Saves a lot of the time and money that you described in this article.
I’m curious if this phenomenon is also a named approach. “Preservation of what’s on hand because it often comes in handy and saves hours of life from running around procuring a replacement down the road.” That doesn’t have quite the same ring. Anyway I’m curious what a good guiding principle is when these two philosophies of minimalism and hours of life collide.
KP – my two cents . I generally follow a one comes- in one goes- out approach. Like when I get a new pair of shoes, the old one goes out ( either to a proper landfill or recycled for deserving users), same for clothes to a greater extent ( I prefer white and hence the turnover is higher – in a tropical climate). It also helps that there is a great charity / recycling industry alive in India hence you really dont throw anything away. Coming to the other point : I have stopped just in case items which cost above Rs. 1000 /- ( above 15 USD), prefer to wait for a week and buy only if required. Like in the case of headphone last week – gave away my old one and tried for a week – only when i felt the need, went for the new one…
Regarding hours of life, after I took an online purchase detox for 50 days, now all I do is add stuff onto my cart when I think I need it,( and when I am free) and purchase only when I need it !
Hey Kp. I share your dilemma of not knowing what is practical to hang onto for future use vs freeing embrace of minimalist decluttering. Be honest with yourself as to what can be truly useful and what detracts from your life by being clutter. I believe when you get to this point you’ve already given it good thought and it becomes personal choice. The thing is we really don’t need many “extras” for future use of anything. By all means though if you have room to keep and store a few extra t-shirts you already own and it makes you feel good. Keep them.
KP, I can relate. I feel like, if it’s an item that you have a good chance (be honest!) of using in the future (like a t-shirt that fits and you actually like), then keep it for now. When another t-shirt wears out, you’ll have that one to take its place (or even keep them all out and ready to wear to begin with).
As long as you’re not buying more t-shirts in the meantime (*this* is the key!), it makes sense; you’ll eventually get to just the right amount of shirts without wasting money replacing one you could have kept. You’re still becoming minimalist (ha!), just on a slightly longer timeline.
I’ve read it somewhere and it made sense to me…if you can find it in less than 10 minutes for less than 10$, then give it away! I used to store all these “just in case” junk and…surprise, surprise there was NEVER a case :)
Great Article. Material possessions cost a lot more than money. Time is the one thing that is so precious. I really try to use it wisely.
I am self employed…. Just sold a 6000 sq. ft. home FULL of stuff amassed over 25 years. Moved into a rental with 2500 sq.ft. Got rid of so much it boggles my mind. Between building the house and moving to it and living on 2 1/2 acres. Having my business there… Raising 2 well adjusted sons there, over the years inheriting two households of art, antiques, furniture etc… I think now of cost of the time it took to live the life. I miss the memories created there, my garden, big property. But now I realise all I did was take care of stuff. And it is just stuff and you can’t take it with you. I’ll be 60 in May and feel like a weight has been lifted off of me that was so heavy, that I can’t put it into words. Joshua I want to thank you for giving me perspective throughout it. I bought your book about a year ago and started following your feed , prior to the move. Without your kind words and direction. I don’t think I would be where I am now. Thank You! I just regret not reading it sooner. Why are we all “buying” into the fact that it is stuff that makes you happy? I now know the reality of it. Thanks for helping me and so many others.
Messy garage OR Play with your kids? I choose play with the kids! Regards, Cindy
I love this. I am in the process of reducing the “stuff” that we have accumulated over the past 25 years as well. Not downsizing our home but definitely downsizing our possessions. I tend to look, like you, at what the upkeep of these possessions is costing me – the time to maintain them, clean around them when cleaning my house, and how much, if any, enjoyment I get from them.
Good post! I will try this as well. I currently use another approach by calculating the monthly cost of an item to decide if it is worth buying for me.
E.g. iPhone for 800$ used for 4 years results in ~17$/month.
Car for 25000$ used for 10 years results in 210$/month.
For sure you can think about more factors like expected usage, maintenance (cost or your leisure time)…