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It doesn’t cost anything to spend 4 hours of your time doing anything, so it doesn’t really wipe out any savings. Reducing a bill from $400 month to $200 is rea

by anang 6y ago

It doesn’t cost anything to spend 4 hours of your time doing anything, so it doesn’t really wipe out any savings. Reducing a bill from $400 month to $200 is real money, not some theoretical time/value judgement. And, as others have mentioned, there is enormous value in knowing how to operate on a fairly lean tech stack. It makes it so much simpler to scale effectively while keeping costs down.

deleted 6y ago
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darekkay 6y ago
This is only true, if you do not value your free time. In your example, you've spent 4h to save 200$, so your work was worth 50$/hour. A freelancer with a 100$/hour rate might do 2 hours of work instead, spend the money, and gain 2 hours of free time. There are other factors of course, but in general, many people come up with a rate for their own free time (which is often higher than the actual rate they charge clients)
- anang 6y ago
  It’s not only true if you don’t your free time. It’s only true if you’re a freelancer that is turning down hours at a higher rate than what you’re saving. Many people working on products, both on their own and within a company, aren’t turning down other profitable work to optimize existing solutions. If I watch a two hour movie instead of spending two hours saving $100/month, it doesn’t matter how much I value my time, no one is paying me $100/hour to watch a movie.
  - darekkay 6y ago
    There's a difference between the initial example and watching a movie. That's what I summed up with "there are other factors (than money)". If I'm only interested in the _outcome_ and I treat the way to achieve it as work, I definitely weight the time cost vs benefit (and I am not a freelancer). If it is something I enjoy doing (which may or may not be true for the initial example), I'll take this into account as well. Time is a limited resource, and I treat it as such.

by anang 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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darekkay 6y ago

This is only true, if you do not value your free time. In your example, you've spent 4h to save 200$, so your work was worth 50$/hour. A freelancer with a 100$/hour rate might do 2 hours of work instead, spend the money, and gain 2 hours of free time. There are other factors of course, but in general, many people come up with a rate for their own free time (which is often higher than the actual rate they charge clients)

anang 6y ago
It’s not only true if you don’t your free time. It’s only true if you’re a freelancer that is turning down hours at a higher rate than what you’re saving. Many people working on products, both on their own and within a company, aren’t turning down other profitable work to optimize existing solutions. If I watch a two hour movie instead of spending two hours saving $100/month, it doesn’t matter how much I value my time, no one is paying me $100/hour to watch a movie.
- darekkay 6y ago
  There's a difference between the initial example and watching a movie. That's what I summed up with "there are other factors (than money)". If I'm only interested in the _outcome_ and I treat the way to achieve it as work, I definitely weight the time cost vs benefit (and I am not a freelancer). If it is something I enjoy doing (which may or may not be true for the initial example), I'll take this into account as well. Time is a limited resource, and I treat it as such.