How much money is your time worth?

If you’re on a budget, saving money should be one of your top priorities. There are times, however, when the amount you save doesn’t justify the amount of time it took to get those savings.

This week, I paid a cleaning crew $150 to thoroughly clean my home – including washing the blinds and cleaning the ceiling fans. I had them do things I’ve been meaning to do for months but never got around to, and it was well worth every penny.

Some people may think that’s expensive, but let’s consider what I gained. It took two people about four hours to do everything I needed done. Had I done it myself, it would have taken me at least eight hours. That doesn’t even factor in the interruptions like phone calls, kids, e-mails, etc. that my cleaning crew didn’t have to deal with. When you divide 150 by eight hours, it cost me less than $20 an hour to save myself eight hours of time and stress.

Everyone’s time is worth something, and that should factor in to our purchasing decisions. For example, I am not shopping for school supplies this year. Instead, I gave in and purchased the school supply kit from the PTA at my son’s school. From a strictly financial standpoint, it is cheaper to purchase the school supplies at my local store, but only by about $10. Now let’s add the factor of time.

It takes hours to shop for school supplies – sometimes days. I have never had the luxury of finding everything we need at one store. Add time for travel between stores and the money I’m spending on gas. There’s also the hundreds of other people shopping for the same things I need. It is really hard to find glue sticks when you have to climb over 10 other people to get them. The 10 extra dollars I spent bought me time and peace of mind. Now, while everyone else is fighting over the last three-ring binder in the store, I will be enjoying at least one more stress-free day of summer with my son.

We all get 24 hours to spend every day.  Don’t spend it on on savings that don’t add up.