Harvard Biz Review - Time v. Money

[24601NoMore]

Pretty good and interesting article on how true happiness is typically achieved by having more time, vs. more money.

Article's pretty long so I never got through the entire thing, but there are some pretty insightful points made including data from studies that back up the findings..

https://hbr.org/cover-story/2019/01/time-for-happiness

Common sense stuff, but sometimes hard to see when evaluating OMY v. ER or just thinking about NOT ER'ing to chase even more financial rewards and increased net worth..I sure went through that very thought process as many of you know..glad I chose to do what I did by ER'ing early Jan 19..

 

[Sunset]

Certainly a long article.
Funny how this morning, before reading this, I beat myself up over yesterday's actions where I literally spent a couple of hours picking cruise ship parking.

A classic time vs money issue, and I fell victim to the $$$$ game.

Not just comparing the ratings across various sites,
reading reviews,
looking at photos,
google satellite views,
But then searching various sites for discounts/coupons.
Finally I stopped and slept on it.

So today I went in and bought the parking with my coupon.

Surely 2+ hours of my life were worth more than $10 ?

 

[DrRoy]

Since I FIRE'd I have more time, am less stressed, and sleep better.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Nice article. Thanks for posting. One of the best quotes, "Research shows that once people make more than enough to meet their basic needs, additional money does not reliably promote greater happiness. Yet over and over, our choices do not reflect this reality."

 

[davebarnes]

I literally spent a couple of hours picking cruise ship parking. (

Uber.
$3.19/day equivalent for us.
Zero minutes spent.
Door-to-door.

 

[Jerry1]

I tried to explain this to a few people that said I was two young to retire. I pointed out that even ten more years would not significantly change my lifestyle. I made about $200K so ten years saving half, which I probably wouldn’t have saved that aggressively, would get me one more million. So, I might have been able to increase my lifestyle by $40K per year per the 4% rule. So for me, ten more years might have meant that I could have done the snowbird thing which I really can’t justify currently. But that would have cost TEN MORE YEARS of my life. They kind of understood, but still ended with, “but you’re too young to retire”. Hell, if I wait until 65 or over, then it gets to be that I’m too old to retire.

I’m happy now and working ten more years would have taken the happiness of those ten years down considerably. Then after those years, I would have had less time to enjoy the time I had left, not to mention things like missing the grand kids growing up and the assumption that my health holds up or that I even make it ten more years. No thanks.

 

[24601NoMore]

I've only started to recently appreciate and realize just how valuable time is (v. money). For me, it was the constant "OMY" in a well-paid (but absolutely awful) position. The financial reasons to stay were very compelling, but when you start to see friends and family in their 50s and 60s (and at times even younger) not making it to their next birthday as happened to me quite a bit this past year or two, it becomes crystal clear that "you only go around once" and the value of some additional $$ in the bank means less and less.

We did manage to get to a point where our plan will allow us to make it to SS and Medicare without (hopefully) any major hardships. We certainly won't be going on fancy vacations every year or buying a lot of (often overpriced) things, but can now shift to actually LIVING our life instead of working to live. I've only been at it 2 full weeks now and am just staring week three, but I can already tell it'd be very hard to give up this new found freedom and all the time in the world to do with as I please to go back to w*rk - even if the financial trade-off was really compelling.

Glad you guys found the article useful..thought it was especially pertinent for those (like me recently) struggling with the OMY issue..

 

[gcgang]

When I first started work at the place where I'd stay 32 years, my regional boss told me how he hadn't taken a vacation in 10 years. I rarely took time off in my first 10 years. Maybe a mistake, but maybe I wouldn't have kept the job, which I really liked, if I had.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Interesting article for sure...pretty good work for a former child actor.

I found this interesting...

We also learned that people who valued time more were older, worked fewer hours, were more likely to volunteer, and were more civically engaged. Most important, they were happier by about 0.5 point on a 10-point happiness scale. This difference is equal to about half the happiness bump people experience, on average, from being married.

 

[Red Badger]

A good, if lengthy, article. Fortunately, many here will see it as bias confirmation - - - not a bad thing in this sphere.

I sometimes wonder about the all too many people who shall, one day, realize that most of their time is gone. And gone for good.

 

[Huston55]

OP-

Thx for the link to a thought provoking article. I found lots of truth in the findings of her (and colleague’s) research. I think the suggestions in this article, combined with Darrow Kirkpatrick’s blog post on ‘what’s your time worth’ would be useful guides on where to “invest”* one’s time in FIRE.

*see what I did there?