Inspired to minimise my expenditures and be more aware of my spending habits I wrote a small chrome extension.
"Pay with life" extension replaces any prices in the online stores with amount of time it would take me to earn that money. As an example, if I earn 42m per hour and pay no taxes, then a pair of new shoes that costs 42m on ebay would cost 1 hour of my time. If I do, however, pay approx %30 in taxes, the 42m shoes would cost me more than 1 hour.
This extension currently supports US dollars, GB pounds and euros. Please note that some prices might still not be converted properly.
Play around with it and let me know your thoughts! I do look forward to all the feedback ;)
Curious way to look at it! Do you find it helps you in preventing spending?
For me a big mental change was switching to pre-paid goal/checking-accounts for everything I need, and having big long term, aggressive goals. I do this with Simple "bank" (though I hope to find a more feature rich app to do it in the future). This helps me consistently feel "broke as hell", which has proved to be quite effective to saving. Furthermore, I plan all purchases weeks in advance and budget for everything, food, luxury, bills, etc.
I must admit that I have never applied such an approach to saving my money but it's something that I would definitely try. Thank you for sharing.
I haven't used this extension for a prolonged time yet so I cannot really say if it would prevent spending.
I have made, however, the following observations:
- For me, being a professional, most learning materials (books, courses, etc.) cost minutes of my life but I get infinite(?) value. I am happy to buy these things without a second thought now (before, I would enter analysis/paralysis mode deciding whether I need it and wasting more time on indecision)
- My dream car is approximately 10 years away of hard work (suddenly it seems to be more achievable)
- If I was a low wage worker (or student/apprentice), even the cheapest items would steal a lot of time from my life
s/42m/$20 above (replace 42m with $20). I had the extension enabled while writing the comment and, once I refreshed the page, all the prices have been replaced.
I came across a research paper about 10 years ago that studied happiness across disciplines and was able to show correlation between unhappiness and professions where pay was high and hourly (eg lawyers). The paper suggested that constantly reinforcing the concept of time as money was a possible source of unhappiness.
IMO this is the _only_ way to look at expenses -- the time "expense" is missed most of the time. One spends $20 on somethings, it's only 20, so what...
No it's not just $20 -- it's $20 PLUS the time you need to endure to earn that $20. And this time is what really counts -- the seconds, minutes, hour(s) you give away for that $20 whatever - the time you won't get back -- EVER!!!
For me, the only way to look at things is through time. Time is my most precious asset and it took me way too many years to figure this out and to re-set my mindset. It's where all the "passive income" stuff comes from -- from having something to endure time for your account, so you don't have to.
IMO this should be must-have on every browser, every (web)store right next to price: "$20 or approx. 2h of your life"
That is exactly the same view I have about the stuff I buy. My concern is, however, about younger people who might not fully comprehend that time is the most valuable asset we, humans, have. I hope this idea could grow into something bigger that would educate people about value of time vs value of money.
I have better understanding of money/time relationship after reading "The Millionaire Fastlane" by M.J. DeMarco which I highly recommend.
Thank you for your kind words. I remember some time ago there was an innovative solution to inform consumers of empty calories in chocolate bars. It was proposed to add a label on packaging about the time it would take a person to exercise in order to burn those calories. My point is - the day when these labels are back will be the day when an extension like this might be considered to be included in browsers.
On a salary you're never not off the clock. It makes the time/money conversion less clear. It's not like you can say: I would buy a new TV, but I'll take a week off of work instead.
That's an interesting point, thank you for spotting this. I believe there are many ways you can play around with this extension and draw your own conclusions.
In your particular example, it made me realise that if we were to pay for items with our time we would need some sort of anchor (something to compare to). Perhaps, I would thing along the lines: "Oh, I would need to work 2 weeks to get this Super UHD. Or, I could just work for 1 week and get this simpler UHD. That would save one week of my life. Perhaps I could go on a short holidays? Yeah... let's go for the simpler version".
You're only truly never off the clock if you're also an exempt employee from a tax perspective. There are plenty of salaried positions still eligible for (and required to be paid) overtime. And I think you can still say that, but perhaps the configuration is more complicated. How much do you earn? How much PTO do you get a year? How much do you work each week, on average? These figures combined can be used to calculate your effective hourly rate, on average.
Thank you. I had some doubts putting it under "Fun" category in Chrome Web Store.
I recommend you to take it for a test ride - install it and try it on Bugatti cars, private jets, mansions or anything really. Essentially, see how much you can sacrifice of your life to get your dream come true. I hope you find it less depressing :)
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 47.3 ms ] threadInspired to minimise my expenditures and be more aware of my spending habits I wrote a small chrome extension.
"Pay with life" extension replaces any prices in the online stores with amount of time it would take me to earn that money. As an example, if I earn 42m per hour and pay no taxes, then a pair of new shoes that costs 42m on ebay would cost 1 hour of my time. If I do, however, pay approx %30 in taxes, the 42m shoes would cost me more than 1 hour.
This extension currently supports US dollars, GB pounds and euros. Please note that some prices might still not be converted properly.
Play around with it and let me know your thoughts! I do look forward to all the feedback ;)
For me a big mental change was switching to pre-paid goal/checking-accounts for everything I need, and having big long term, aggressive goals. I do this with Simple "bank" (though I hope to find a more feature rich app to do it in the future). This helps me consistently feel "broke as hell", which has proved to be quite effective to saving. Furthermore, I plan all purchases weeks in advance and budget for everything, food, luxury, bills, etc.
I haven't used this extension for a prolonged time yet so I cannot really say if it would prevent spending.
I have made, however, the following observations: - For me, being a professional, most learning materials (books, courses, etc.) cost minutes of my life but I get infinite(?) value. I am happy to buy these things without a second thought now (before, I would enter analysis/paralysis mode deciding whether I need it and wasting more time on indecision) - My dream car is approximately 10 years away of hard work (suddenly it seems to be more achievable) - If I was a low wage worker (or student/apprentice), even the cheapest items would steal a lot of time from my life
Just a heads up!
No it's not just $20 -- it's $20 PLUS the time you need to endure to earn that $20. And this time is what really counts -- the seconds, minutes, hour(s) you give away for that $20 whatever - the time you won't get back -- EVER!!!
For me, the only way to look at things is through time. Time is my most precious asset and it took me way too many years to figure this out and to re-set my mindset. It's where all the "passive income" stuff comes from -- from having something to endure time for your account, so you don't have to.
IMO this should be must-have on every browser, every (web)store right next to price: "$20 or approx. 2h of your life"
I have better understanding of money/time relationship after reading "The Millionaire Fastlane" by M.J. DeMarco which I highly recommend.
Thank you for your kind words. I remember some time ago there was an innovative solution to inform consumers of empty calories in chocolate bars. It was proposed to add a label on packaging about the time it would take a person to exercise in order to burn those calories. My point is - the day when these labels are back will be the day when an extension like this might be considered to be included in browsers.
On a salary you're never not off the clock. It makes the time/money conversion less clear. It's not like you can say: I would buy a new TV, but I'll take a week off of work instead.
In your particular example, it made me realise that if we were to pay for items with our time we would need some sort of anchor (something to compare to). Perhaps, I would thing along the lines: "Oh, I would need to work 2 weeks to get this Super UHD. Or, I could just work for 1 week and get this simpler UHD. That would save one week of my life. Perhaps I could go on a short holidays? Yeah... let's go for the simpler version".
I recommend you to take it for a test ride - install it and try it on Bugatti cars, private jets, mansions or anything really. Essentially, see how much you can sacrifice of your life to get your dream come true. I hope you find it less depressing :)
You've got some bugs to work out but this is a very fun and useful idea.