7 ms·

This idea really resonates with me. I started out life pretty poor, and am fortunate enough now to be able to purchase most anything I want. What I no longer ha

This idea really resonates with me. I started out life pretty poor, and am fortunate enough now to be able to purchase most anything I want. What I no longer have however, is time. I found myself purchasing things I want to have time for, but in all reality don't. Thinking about the second cost before hitting that buy button may be a good way for me to stop cluttering my life up with stuff I don't need, and the associated stress of knowing it's sitting there waiting to eat up time I don't have.

jspaetzel 5y ago
Now that you can afford to, why not buy some time for yourself instead of stuff?
- srik 5y ago
  Youth is wasted on the old.
- hahajk 5y ago
  Maids and cloth-folding services are great, but a lot of people who have a whole lot of money but no time are working 60-80 hours a week (many work even more of course.) But you’re giving up more than money if you quit and take a 40 hour a week job. Jobs with fewer weekly hours often aren’t as glamorous and probably don’t have that feeling of “velocity”. Trying to take less than 40 hours a week and you’re probably not going to be a first class member of the company. If Bob takes off every Friday, how can he manage his full time team? And if a company tries to employ people at 30 hours a week as policy, how can they possibly compete?
  - bruce511 5y ago
    When you're in a culture it's hard to spot the things that are not "normal". From an external point of view working 60-80 hours a week is not "normal"[1] It's a very US centric thing. In, dare I say, most countries a 40 hour week (or less in places) is normal and working past that is not expected, and often frowned upon.[2] If you are in the SV rat race, where you do 80 hours a week, then you can't imagine a world where people do less than that. But (spoiler alert) it works out just fine. On the other hand if you have successfully indoctrinated employees to work for you for 100 hours a week growing your business for you, selling you their lives for nothing more than money, then by all means get rich off their sweat. [1] I'm referring to regular salary work here, not minimum wage service jobs. [2] there are also countries, often the same ones, that _require_ you to take 4 weeks of paid vacation every year.
    - alar44 5y ago
      The myth that many people work 60-80 hr weeks needs to die. Very few people do this and the ones that do choose to. C levels, company owners etc. Anyone else working that much straight up chooses to.
      - watwut 5y ago
        Plus those numbers are not productive in long term. Productivity goes down with too many hours for more then few weeks.
      - kuboble 5y ago
        I don't know about SV but in academia it is extremely common and often expected that people work 60+ hours. Sometimes it's just peer pressure. Sometimes it's an explicit requirement. Few years ago I spoke with an American professor who just started his tenure in Switzerland. He told me he was shocked and outraged when he was the only one to show to work on national holiday!
        alar44 5y ago
        Great anecdote. Academia is, what, like 0.1% of the workforce? Browsing some polls, it looks like less than 10% of salaries people work more than 60 hours. I don't know what the ratio is for salary vs hourly in the US, but that probably puts it less than 5% for all workers. I think these people are just the loudest and like writing articles about how much they work. No one writes about how they work 40 hours and life is fine. There is also the other case where someone may go to the office 10 hours a day, punch some time on the weekends, claim they "worked" 60 hours, but in reality only got 4-5 hours worth of work done per day. I just don't buy it.
        mlac 5y ago
        > There is also the other case where someone may go to the office 10 hours a day, punch some time on the weekends, claim they "worked" 60 hours, but in reality only got 4-5 hours worth of work done per day. They spend the other 5-6 hours writing about their 10 hour days.
  - cracrecry 5y ago
    I work over 40 hours a week or less and it is already tough, because the intensity of my work is very high, like an air controller work I just can't work more hours at that intensity or I will burn out. No human being can run a marathon for 8 hours a day, every day. They will tell you they do but it is not true, the people that know the best are those that are used to run marathons. The people that work 80 hours have an intensity of work that is extremely weak, or else they will not be able to work in a sustained way. Most people I know delude themselves and can do as much in way less time increasing their intensity of work and using delegation and automation. By the way I am competitive doing that and lots of my friends also are doing the same.
    - maccard 5y ago
      > The people that work 80 hours have an intensity of work that is extremely weak, or else they will not be able to work in a sustained way I don't think this is necessarily a fair way to frame this side. I was very close to burnout in a previous job, and it's taken me probably two years to realise that one of the root causes of my problems was that I just never, ever ever got a chance to switch off. I would be doing "light" work on the weekends (responding to people, messages, build issues), and in the evenings people would be messaging me with questions because I was in a different time zone where my evening overlapped with their afternoon. I turned off notifications outside of work hours and started getting feedback that my work was suffering so I turned them back on. What started as one message a week from a stressed coworker was now 4-5 messages every evening. I was starting work at 9am, finishing at 6pm, and then connected and pretty much unofficially on call until midnight, and then basically on call from 3pm until midnight on weekends. It was probably 90 hours a week all in, and I was definitely doing probably 50% more work than another engineer doing a 40h week, but I was doing it because I was working 2x the hours.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > working 60-80 hours a week How can this be legal? (not to mention physically and mentally healthy)
- mattlondon 5y ago
  Time is not ways just for yourself. Time is also for the others in your life - partner, kids etc. Same for money. Sure you can pay for others to do things for you (cleaning, cooking, laundry, gardening etc) but there is still only 24 hours in a day and you need to chose wisely on what you spend that time on. Likewise for money, I am not just working for my own personal benefit but I am also paying for my family's needs too. You can't just nope out of a job because you want more time to ready moby dick when you need to buy food to feed your kids. Of course if you had limitless funds things would be different. I don't know where that point is, but I at least certainly still need to work the 40 hour week.
Tade0 5y ago
As someone with a similar story: I've found that there's a third cost and that's real estate. As in: things take up space and if you consider the cost of that suddenly everything becomes expensive. I while ago I wanted to buy a threadmill - I think I could get a decent one for €1000. BUT it would occupy two square metres in my apartment, so the space for that item is worth €5000 in my area. €6000 for a threadmill? I think I'd rather use one of the two gyms available within a five minute walk.
- shostack 5y ago
  This is so true. And there's an added time tax on the backend to declutter, and sometimes a monetary tax, just to get rid of stuff.
  - baliex 5y ago
    Along the same lines as realising that you'll eventually want to get rid of things is realising—at the time of purchase—that there'll be a cost (time, money, emotional) to getting rid of it is a healthier way of thinking. The idea that getting rid of stuff is _just_ getting rid of stuff is missing the "third" cost, discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042285
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- akvadrako 5y ago
  It probably isn't quite that expensive since you don't buy the floor space with cash but a low-interest, high-leverage loan. And the resale value of that space is probably over 100%. A better calculation would be annual costs. So say 2% mortgage × €5000 = €100/year. While the treadmill is €1000 / 5 years = €200 / year.
- stackbutterflow 5y ago
  I don't think this analogy quite makes sense. You didn't use that space before buying a treadmill anyway. If anything you actually paid 5000€ to not use it at all. Money wasted. But if you buy a treadmill you're finally putting it to use and starting to generate a ROI.
s3tz 5y ago
Some quick advice, move from FOMO (fear of missing out) to JOMO (joy of missing out).
- speed_spread 5y ago
  I've personally adopted JOFU as a way of life.
  - mlac 5y ago
    As long as you stumble forward with enough momentum, you’ll get there eventually. Even if you don’t, you’ll do so joyfully.
- MandieD 5y ago
  Thanks for giving a snappy way to call how I now feel about the lack of original-version American movies and TV series on streaming services in Germany. They’re all dubbed into German, and there is no legal source where I can hear the actors reciting their own dialogue. I understand and like German movies and even some TV, but can’t stand dubbed ones that I can almost lip-read in my native language. Instead of taking the trouble to pirate or talk someone in the US through configuring a RaspberryPi on their home network, I just miss out. Previously, resentfully; now, joyfully. JOMO.
- crims0n 5y ago
  This too is an interesting concept I had not heard of before today. Will give it some thought, thank you.
goodpoint 5y ago
Having a lot of disposable income and very little free time is the biggest driver of consumerism. People try to make up for the little free time with expensive vacations and activities and compulsive shopping. It also disengages people from society, local communities, public matters and advocacy. This does not happen by accident.
marcos100 5y ago
I don't know how rich you are, but minimalism is possibility. Contrary to what a lot people believe, minimalism is not a thing for the poor or a way to get rich. It's a lifestyle for the people who can buy/rent anything whenever they want and those people usually have a lot of money. You'll end up with a lot of less things, physically and mentally. About time, you have to think about time x money. Is there any way that you can pay for some thing or service that free up your time? For example, you can drive to your work or you can pay a taxi and have that time to do something else. When on vacation, you cay pay more for a hotel that is near the place you're interested. You can pay for a personal assistant to handle smaller things, etc.

jspaetzel 5y ago

Now that you can afford to, why not buy some time for yourself instead of stuff?

srik 5y ago
Youth is wasted on the old.
hahajk 5y ago
Maids and cloth-folding services are great, but a lot of people who have a whole lot of money but no time are working 60-80 hours a week (many work even more of course.) But you’re giving up more than money if you quit and take a 40 hour a week job. Jobs with fewer weekly hours often aren’t as glamorous and probably don’t have that feeling of “velocity”. Trying to take less than 40 hours a week and you’re probably not going to be a first class member of the company. If Bob takes off every Friday, how can he manage his full time team? And if a company tries to employ people at 30 hours a week as policy, how can they possibly compete?
- bruce511 5y ago
  When you're in a culture it's hard to spot the things that are not "normal". From an external point of view working 60-80 hours a week is not "normal"[1] It's a very US centric thing. In, dare I say, most countries a 40 hour week (or less in places) is normal and working past that is not expected, and often frowned upon.[2] If you are in the SV rat race, where you do 80 hours a week, then you can't imagine a world where people do less than that. But (spoiler alert) it works out just fine. On the other hand if you have successfully indoctrinated employees to work for you for 100 hours a week growing your business for you, selling you their lives for nothing more than money, then by all means get rich off their sweat. [1] I'm referring to regular salary work here, not minimum wage service jobs. [2] there are also countries, often the same ones, that _require_ you to take 4 weeks of paid vacation every year.
  - alar44 5y ago
    The myth that many people work 60-80 hr weeks needs to die. Very few people do this and the ones that do choose to. C levels, company owners etc. Anyone else working that much straight up chooses to.
    - watwut 5y ago
      Plus those numbers are not productive in long term. Productivity goes down with too many hours for more then few weeks.
    - kuboble 5y ago
      I don't know about SV but in academia it is extremely common and often expected that people work 60+ hours. Sometimes it's just peer pressure. Sometimes it's an explicit requirement. Few years ago I spoke with an American professor who just started his tenure in Switzerland. He told me he was shocked and outraged when he was the only one to show to work on national holiday!
      - alar44 5y ago
        Great anecdote. Academia is, what, like 0.1% of the workforce? Browsing some polls, it looks like less than 10% of salaries people work more than 60 hours. I don't know what the ratio is for salary vs hourly in the US, but that probably puts it less than 5% for all workers. I think these people are just the loudest and like writing articles about how much they work. No one writes about how they work 40 hours and life is fine. There is also the other case where someone may go to the office 10 hours a day, punch some time on the weekends, claim they "worked" 60 hours, but in reality only got 4-5 hours worth of work done per day. I just don't buy it.
        mlac 5y ago
        > There is also the other case where someone may go to the office 10 hours a day, punch some time on the weekends, claim they "worked" 60 hours, but in reality only got 4-5 hours worth of work done per day. They spend the other 5-6 hours writing about their 10 hour days.
- cracrecry 5y ago
  I work over 40 hours a week or less and it is already tough, because the intensity of my work is very high, like an air controller work I just can't work more hours at that intensity or I will burn out. No human being can run a marathon for 8 hours a day, every day. They will tell you they do but it is not true, the people that know the best are those that are used to run marathons. The people that work 80 hours have an intensity of work that is extremely weak, or else they will not be able to work in a sustained way. Most people I know delude themselves and can do as much in way less time increasing their intensity of work and using delegation and automation. By the way I am competitive doing that and lots of my friends also are doing the same.
  - maccard 5y ago
    > The people that work 80 hours have an intensity of work that is extremely weak, or else they will not be able to work in a sustained way I don't think this is necessarily a fair way to frame this side. I was very close to burnout in a previous job, and it's taken me probably two years to realise that one of the root causes of my problems was that I just never, ever ever got a chance to switch off. I would be doing "light" work on the weekends (responding to people, messages, build issues), and in the evenings people would be messaging me with questions because I was in a different time zone where my evening overlapped with their afternoon. I turned off notifications outside of work hours and started getting feedback that my work was suffering so I turned them back on. What started as one message a week from a stressed coworker was now 4-5 messages every evening. I was starting work at 9am, finishing at 6pm, and then connected and pretty much unofficially on call until midnight, and then basically on call from 3pm until midnight on weekends. It was probably 90 hours a week all in, and I was definitely doing probably 50% more work than another engineer doing a 40h week, but I was doing it because I was working 2x the hours.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > working 60-80 hours a week How can this be legal? (not to mention physically and mentally healthy)
mattlondon 5y ago
Time is not ways just for yourself. Time is also for the others in your life - partner, kids etc. Same for money. Sure you can pay for others to do things for you (cleaning, cooking, laundry, gardening etc) but there is still only 24 hours in a day and you need to chose wisely on what you spend that time on. Likewise for money, I am not just working for my own personal benefit but I am also paying for my family's needs too. You can't just nope out of a job because you want more time to ready moby dick when you need to buy food to feed your kids. Of course if you had limitless funds things would be different. I don't know where that point is, but I at least certainly still need to work the 40 hour week.

Tade0 5y ago

As someone with a similar story: I've found that there's a third cost and that's real estate. As in: things take up space and if you consider the cost of that suddenly everything becomes expensive. I while ago I wanted to buy a threadmill - I think I could get a decent one for €1000. BUT it would occupy two square metres in my apartment, so the space for that item is worth €5000 in my area. €6000 for a threadmill? I think I'd rather use one of the two gyms available within a five minute walk.

shostack 5y ago
This is so true. And there's an added time tax on the backend to declutter, and sometimes a monetary tax, just to get rid of stuff.
- baliex 5y ago
  Along the same lines as realising that you'll eventually want to get rid of things is realising—at the time of purchase—that there'll be a cost (time, money, emotional) to getting rid of it is a healthier way of thinking. The idea that getting rid of stuff is _just_ getting rid of stuff is missing the "third" cost, discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042285
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
akvadrako 5y ago
It probably isn't quite that expensive since you don't buy the floor space with cash but a low-interest, high-leverage loan. And the resale value of that space is probably over 100%. A better calculation would be annual costs. So say 2% mortgage × €5000 = €100/year. While the treadmill is €1000 / 5 years = €200 / year.
stackbutterflow 5y ago
I don't think this analogy quite makes sense. You didn't use that space before buying a treadmill anyway. If anything you actually paid 5000€ to not use it at all. Money wasted. But if you buy a treadmill you're finally putting it to use and starting to generate a ROI.

s3tz 5y ago

Some quick advice, move from FOMO (fear of missing out) to JOMO (joy of missing out).

speed_spread 5y ago
I've personally adopted JOFU as a way of life.
- mlac 5y ago
  As long as you stumble forward with enough momentum, you’ll get there eventually. Even if you don’t, you’ll do so joyfully.
MandieD 5y ago
Thanks for giving a snappy way to call how I now feel about the lack of original-version American movies and TV series on streaming services in Germany. They’re all dubbed into German, and there is no legal source where I can hear the actors reciting their own dialogue. I understand and like German movies and even some TV, but can’t stand dubbed ones that I can almost lip-read in my native language. Instead of taking the trouble to pirate or talk someone in the US through configuring a RaspberryPi on their home network, I just miss out. Previously, resentfully; now, joyfully. JOMO.
crims0n 5y ago
This too is an interesting concept I had not heard of before today. Will give it some thought, thank you.

goodpoint 5y ago

Having a lot of disposable income and very little free time is the biggest driver of consumerism. People try to make up for the little free time with expensive vacations and activities and compulsive shopping. It also disengages people from society, local communities, public matters and advocacy. This does not happen by accident.

marcos100 5y ago

I don't know how rich you are, but minimalism is possibility. Contrary to what a lot people believe, minimalism is not a thing for the poor or a way to get rich. It's a lifestyle for the people who can buy/rent anything whenever they want and those people usually have a lot of money. You'll end up with a lot of less things, physically and mentally. About time, you have to think about time x money. Is there any way that you can pay for some thing or service that free up your time? For example, you can drive to your work or you can pay a taxi and have that time to do something else. When on vacation, you cay pay more for a hotel that is near the place you're interested. You can pay for a personal assistant to handle smaller things, etc.