I used to wake up each Monday morning feeling relaxed and refreshed. Now all I can think about is taking a Monday off just so that I can catch up on life. Seems like the battle is always the same these days—do you value time or money?

We’ve got two options: keep doing stuff like cleaning the house and doing our taxes or hire someone else to do it. The question is: which is of more value in your life? Your time? Or your money?

During college, the scarcity is unquestionably the money. Time can run in abundance. Then you graduate, get a job, finally gain a little money to do things… and discover that you have no time left.

I’ve always thought that the greatest parody in life is how much we work and work when we’re young and capable so that when we’re old and out of energy, we can stop working. Vacationing in the Alps sounds pretty cool. But when you’ve got the energy to hit the slops and all of the other wild opportunities, you don’t have the money or time. Meanwhile, my grandma could fit a few fancy vacations to the Alps into her life… if she had the energy to travel outside the state lines.

Some British professor apparently came up with a time versus money formula:

V = (W ((100-t) / 100) / C

V = value of an hour
W = your hourly wage
t = your tax rate
C = how much it costs to live in your area

This formula makes sense to me until I think about the cost of living around here… then the equation gets skewed. I’m not sure what the definition of C is. Guess I need to add “figure out this formula” to my to-do list. Any ideas?

In any case, you probably have a good sense of what your hourly value is because it’s what other people pay you for your services. First decide which is more important—your time or your money and how much of each you have to spare or are willing to give up. Housecleaning, yard work, and taxes probably hit the top of your I-hate-to-do list. Pay someone else to do them for you? Hmmm.

Brilliant idea: If you like to do the things that everyone else hates, you can land some big money. Think insurance, tax law, or poop scooping. How many young guys start up lawn mowing services? How many of these guys let the businesses grow beyond their interest in mowing lawns to their interest in running companies? They hire other young guys to mow while they make money.

The balance, of course, is making sure that you don’t run out of money when you hire out the work! Yet I am willing to bet that most Aridni readers don’t confront the time/money situation like this. For us, the feeling of being exhausted holds more value that the feeling of being poor on paper.

So how do you manage to balance your time and your money?