Eddie Money Matters

Okay, everyone who sometimes spends too much money, raise your hand.

Ah ha! No one can touch their mouse now to scroll down. Not good. Put those hands down.

If you -- like I -- sometimes spend money somewhat wastefully, buying things you don't really need and the like, then I've come across a mental trick that might help you. At least I think it might help you, because it's been helping me.

The trick is this: don't measure prices in dollars (or Euros or pesos or whatever coin-of-the-realm you're using). Instead, before opening your wallet, mentally convert that price into hours; that is, do the math to turn the dollar amount into how much time it takes for you to earn that much money.

Yeah, sure, I'm not the first to say "time is money." (It was first said in 1842 by one Ebenezer Scrooge, British financier and philosophical founder of the Free Market wing of the modern Republican Party.) And I'm probably not the first to suggest this particular trick. Still, it's lack of originality doesn't make it a bad idea.

I first thought of this last week while putting gas into my truck. I was on my way home from work and stopped at some Chevron station, playing the little game of trying to look cool while pumping gas, when something occurred to me: I'd just put in an eight-hour day at work, only to stop and put four hours of that money into my gas tank. In fact, every week I spend one entire day's worth of money into my gas tank, just to get to and from work.

Of course, this brings up several points, such as 1) I live too far from my job, and 2) I don't earn enough per hour, and 3) Ooo, aren't gas prices horrible!, and 4) Texas is too uncivilized to have much in the way of public transportation.

But the more exciting idea was for me to start thinking of money as literal time, specifically as the amount of time it took to put that much money into my pocket. It's easy to go out to eat with some friends at the restaurants they prefer, but when I consider that that one meal takes two hours of work to pay for, I'm more likely to suggest some place cheaper.

All this trick of mine really does is change my perspective on the value of money and, therefore, on everything else. Nothing real is changed; only my thinking about prices.

But who the Hell cares? If it gets me to stopping spending money on things I don't need, I like it.

____________________

Just a quick update on my favourite subject: myself.

It's been a fairly productive week so far. Not only did I finally start running again-- actually doing something to get rid of these last ten pounds that hide the abs I've been working on -- but I also re-did my taxes finally.

My return was electronically filed before the deadline, but the IRS rejected it and sent it back for some changes. Monday night, I finally dug out the requisite paperwork and made the changes. No word yet on whether this new version is IRS-acceptable, but I'll know soon. If it fails again, I may have to pay someone to make things right.

And I got a raise. Sort of. What I actually got was a promise of a raise starting in June.

I've only been there about five weeks, but I've been trying hard to learn the business and make myself really useful. It seems a good fit so far. They need someone who can do a variety of things moderately well, and so far I can handle all of that. I'm still having trouble trying to write in that environment (too much noise and too many interruptions), but I'll get that done for them too.