Trading Time for Money

https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/trading-time-for-money

by nicbou • 6 years ago

190 150 6 years ago

gotem• 6 years ago

This doesn’t make sense. If someone makes $10 an hour, then they would be better off if they made $20 an hour. That’s because $20 > (GREATER THAN) $10. However if it was only $5 (five), then they wouldn’t want to work for $5 an hour because $5 < (LESS THAN) $10.

You can check it with your calculator if you’re skeptical.

$20-$10 = + number so $20 is grater

$5 - $10 = - number so $5 is less

nicbou17• 6 years ago

I'm not sure if I understand your comment, or how it relates to the article.

greatgib• 6 years ago

If I understand well the comment, I have the same feeling that the math of the article are wrong.

For exemple, it says that you spare money by doing the things and that this money will buy you time later.

But if you still work, and do not pay someone to do your chores, you will have to do them in week end and free time. So you lose free time now for potential free time later.

Also, it does not make any sense to compare fixed personal costs like groceries and co with the difference in costs between what you earn with your work compared to paying someone half of your salary.

xupybd3• 6 years ago

Looking at the comments by gotem I suspect the account is a clever bot.

dilippkumar• 6 years ago

So roughly, the author is saying something like:

  if ( outsourcing_cost * alpha     > opportunity_cost ) {
    outsource();
  }

and discusses how that alpha should be calculated. The author also mentions some side benefits of doing some tasks and getting better at them.

Does HN have any thoughts about living a smaller life by doing fewer things and having more time to just live and enjoy life? If spending time figuring out how to optimize money/time in more complicated ways could produce a more efficient path, wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge?

In other words, are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements?

nicbou17• 6 years ago

wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge

How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier, doubly so if you are also fighting other battles. Sometimes there is a solution, but it's just not attainable for everyone.

are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements?

I didn't want to make this post about my own lifestyle, but it might qualify as an answer:

1. I reduced my expenses. You don't need to earn the money you don't spend. I've always been frugal, but I recently took more drastic steps with point #2 in mind. For instance, I cut my rent by 42% by moving to the edge of the city into an older apartment. Well, actually 30% because I have a garage - a lifelong dream of mine.

2. I went freelance to have more control on how much time I sell. I didn't think this was possible, until a contractor at my old job said he took 3 month vacations between contracts. The more you earn and the less you spend, the longer you can go between contracts. At the average rate [1], I could cover my expenses in 3 months. The 4th month pays for a nice trip.

3. Decouple your income from your time. I built a website, and it grew enough to pay the bills. Now I live from it. I spend 20-30 hours a month on it (though it requires about 10). This was a stroke of luck. I couldn't reproduce that if you asked me.

That's about it. I'm well aware that this could only happen in specific conditions with a healthy amount of arbitrary luck. However, it did result in significant quality of life improvements. Anyone can appreciate the value of having so much free time. It's only a matter of using it well.

I don't know if there's any wisdom to extract from this, but I hope it helps.

[1] https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/freelance-developer-rate

xupybd3• 6 years ago

Any chance of you going into more detail about your website? I love those success stories.

Jabbles• 6 years ago

How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier

This is a fantastic quote - you could write whole essays on how it relates to open sourcing a software project.

paulryanrogers4• 6 years ago

How do you cover medical when freelancing? Do you have a family to support?

ClumsyPilot• 6 years ago

One could save a decent amount of money for self and family by being handy with basic tools, plumbing, that sort of thing - but most in UK cities don't.

paulryanrogers4• 6 years ago

IME in the US anything beyond trivial handiwork risks causing damage that costs more than paying a professional from the start.

Sadly my experience with professionals is the quality of their work is basically random. Sometimes I pay a lot and the quality is terrible. Sometimes I pay very little and it turns out great. And at the end of the day I don't have the time or strength to do everything I could possibly learn and do myself. So my experiments will continue until the neglect from the previous owners is fully repaired.

KozmoNau7• 6 years ago

"Does HN have any thoughts about living a smaller life by doing fewer things and having more time to just live and enjoy life?"

I heartily recommend it.

Get off the "keeping up with the Joneses" carousel, reduce your living expenses and enjoy both having your money stretch much further as well as building up savings. I invest a sustainable amount of my monthly income into climate-friendly mutual funds, as I expect climate change to drive massive innovation in that field. I do not invest in any other segments, for moral reasons.

We prefer to live a frugal life and try to avoid buying unnecessary things. In our current living situation, we are lucky enough to not need a car on a daily basis (bicycles and public transit work great here), so we've joined a nonprofit car sharing service (dedicated cars, not people's personal cars) for the occasions where we do have to go outside of practical public transit reach.

In general, we try to buy second hand when possible and repair our things ourselves. Most of my clothes have one or another kind of fix or slight modification at this point, aside from t-shirts, which are just hopeless in that regard. Men's shirts take repairs so much better. One thing you learn quickly is that tightly-fitting clothes wear our a lot quicker, especially those with elastic fibers added. Looser-fitting clothes last significantly longer. Tightly-fitting synthetic athletic wear does last pretty well (probably due to the reduced friction), but we are trying to avoid synthetic fibers.

It also becomes a hobby in its own right, as I'm writing this I'm adding suspender buttons to some nice thick cotton twill pants that I found recently, because it beats the hell out of belts for comfort. It's hard to find anything but dress pants with suspender buttons these days and clip suspenders chew up the waistband.

On the occasions where we do have to buy something brand new, we try to find the locally (Europe, in our case) produced products, both for the environmental impact and for the worker protections factor. Organic and sustainable production is something we prefer to seek out, as well.

It's not hard to live frugally and you don't have to take it to extremes, if you don't want to. Just learning to repair things instead of throwing away and buying new, is a great first step.

I recognize that we are privileged in that we can actually choose to live like this and have the services around us that make it practical, but I think most people would feel a lot less stressed if they slowed down and lived in a more frugal fashion.

paulryanrogers4• 6 years ago

Repair and reuse is great, though can be time consuming. It's harder now that I have kids. My extended family here in the US expect to buy new things for them on the regular. No amount of explaining has changed that. And I'd rather not cut them off over their bad consumption habits.

The culture in the US seems to be that 'new' is always best. Pollution and slave labor are just boring details, meant only for Dateline specials.

robocat6• 6 years ago

Also taxes return value to an individual - infrastructure, education, healthcare, etcetera.

Rating the personal benefits you get from government at $0 usually means you are freeloading IMHO.

pilom• 6 years ago

"In other words, are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements?"

Get a comfy bed. Buy comfortable shoes. Spend more money on things that make you happy and less money on things that others tell you should make you happier. Housing is a great example, there is a lot of evidence that housing size doesn't improve happiness but living close to work and minimizing commute time increases happiness significantly.

nicbou17• 6 years ago

I sort of disagree. You might end up buying yourself a really nice cage. I'd rather ride a bicycle around the country than drive a Mercedes to work.

Bakary2• 6 years ago

If spending time figuring out how to optimize money/time in more complicated ways could produce a more efficient path, wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge?

Willpower and a natural inclination are the key elements here. It's common knowledge that smoking is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that it will be the main force behind people's choices to smoke or not. This applies to almost every other aspect you could think of that requires some degree of effort or interest.

An example of a non-obvious life hack would be Anki. It works exactly as intended, meaning that it makes remembering things far easier than before. But the catch is that you have to do the cards everyday. Therefore only a minority will actually use it. There is no free lunch.

You can generally try to optimize your life, but this sort of Less Wrong style ideology inevitably butts up against some awkward truths about existence, mainly that it has a free-form and serendipitous side to it that can't be gamed so easily or by reason alone. You can't power your way to an interesting life just by the mechanical application of hacks as it requires some luck, some feeling for things, and some intuition. Even if you do manage to attain an artful way of living that exploits your personal circumstances really smoothly, you are not safe from a change in your mindset or any aspect of the house of cards that will suddenly make it all crash down.

pwarner• 6 years ago

I suggest finding something you like, and do it. I like gardening and cleaning so I do those, but don't like changing oil so I outsource that. I would change my oil it I could stand up doing it!

xupybd3• 6 years ago

Me too, I've tried explaining this to people. The hard part of an oil change is getting to the oil filter. It's way easier in a pit. You also have to deal with oil disposal and potential spills in the driveway. It makes so much sense to pay someone who is setup to do this.

There are specialist oil changers in my town. I drive in an 30 mins later I drive out. Paying about 150% of what it would cost me to do it.

nicbou17• 6 years ago

That's why my dad pays someone else to do it, but rebuilds engines in his garage. I only do motorcycle oil changes, but those are easy.

eMSF• 6 years ago

The hard part of an oil change is getting to the oil filter.

There's no standard oil filter location; in my car it's at the front of the engine and accessible just by popping the hood and removing the engine cover – no tools required (although a wrench is useful for the filter housing).

It's definitely more work to access the oil pan plug, but not so much that I'd rather schedule an appointment somewhere, drive there and wait and drive back (and pay extra for the same oil and filter).

someguydave2• 6 years ago

you could stand up and change the oil if you have access to a car lift

Thorentis• 6 years ago

By comparison, my grocery bill is 5€ a day.

Do you live on rice and beans? That sounds like you're trading enjoyment for money. We (2 adults) spend about US$150 a week on groceries, and still eat out about once a week. Those groceries include three meals a day, with the leftovers of the night before being taken for lunch the next day. How on earth do people eat healthily and only spend $5 a day?

cko• 6 years ago

Rice, beans, pasta, oats, eggs, nuts, chicken thighs, tomatoes, paprika, onions, potatoes, olive oil, etc. All quite cheap. Requires a bit of initial thought and planning, and maybe experimenting with ingredients.

Carbs and fat are both cheap, and protein can be in the form of chicken and eggs. Vegetables are kinda expensive so I go with mostly broccoli, cabbage, and stuff from the Asian supermarket.

As for groceries, things like hygiene and cleaning products bring up total "grocery" bill, but $5 a day is very possible if it's pure food expenditure.

German groceries are quite cheap actually. When I visited, I bought a kg of sauerkraut for 1 euro and a liter of soy milk for 1.5.

sdenton4• 6 years ago

And you can get even cheaper kraut for the price of a head of cabbage and a bit of salt...

nicbou17• 6 years ago

Two or three square meals a day with a lot of meat and cheese. I am not careful about price at all, but I do cook from scratch. Base ingredients are usually cheap.

Emma_Goldman• 6 years ago

I'm from the UK but while I was doing my PhD I spent the equivalent of US$30-40 a week on food. It's very easy, vegetables and staple carbohydrates - pasta, rice and potatoes - are all inexpensive, and I'm a vegetarian so I bought pulses, beans, eggs, soy and nuts for protein. You just buy what you strictly need, and nothing more. It does come at the expense of some enjoyment, but I still spend no more than US$50 a week now - even though I don't really have to think about the cost of my groceries anymore. US$150 seems high to me, I'd struggle to spend that much with my partner if I tried?

wanderingstan• 6 years ago

The author lives in Germany, where food is surprisingly inexpensive even at good quality.

poma882• 6 years ago

Fuit and veg are expensive in Germany, IMHO, and very expensive if organic.

maccard• 6 years ago

My experience of grocery shopping in the US and europe is that the US is substantially more expensive, and €5 per day is probably equivalent in purchasing power to $10-12 per day which is definitely more doable. $150 is more than the average family of 4's shopping bill in the UK

ma-int• 6 years ago

5€ per day is 150€ a month. I think that this is reasonable but somewhat on the low side.

My family of 3 spends around 100 to 130 Euros per week on groceries. We don't really are trying to save on groceries and usually buy what we want. We eat not much meat and usually cook fresh instead of using convenience food. We try to buy medium to high quality, local and seasonal food. So it's a tad more than 150€ per person but not that much.

bouk2• 6 years ago

Groceries in most of Europe are much higher quality for a lower price than in the US

paulryanrogers4• 6 years ago

Is this true in urban areas too? When I last visited prices seemed higher than the Midwestern US by at least 30%

aphroz• 6 years ago

I would probably do what I am doing for a living if I wasn't getting paid for it tho

nicbou17• 6 years ago

Me too, but I'd skip a few meetings and choose more interesting projects. My job nearly killed my passion for programming.

NiceWayToDoIT2• 6 years ago

For a long time I had an idea that "A real salary is what is left after expenses" so if you earn monthly £2000 but your expenses are £1500 then £500 is your salary. If you earn £1500 but your expenses are £500 effectively you earn £1000 month or more than those that are paid more.

So, solution is to earn more or learn how to live more frugal? Of course it is not possible to reduce some expenses, and some expenses are in % (as taxes) so more you earn you will pay more.

At one point you could get to the point you do not think how much are your expenses, but for most of the people until that time you will realized that you sold so much time that your life has passed in front of your eyes.

Anyhow, it is good advice to find something you love and do it, as often 300 hours of unpaid hobby can give more joy and satisfaction than, all the money in of the best paid job in the world you could earn during that same time.

devtosales• 6 years ago

Can’t trade joy for a house or clothes for the kids.

... or 5 star holidays along the Mediterranean.

NiceWayToDoIT2• 6 years ago

For the first one I agree having kids is obligation and duty one must fulfill, (I am single). For the second one, different folks different strokes, I traveled the world and I have not found that 5 stars holidays will give me more joy than random traveling on tight budget. As I enjoy nature and free time - so, super expensive wine, cars or fancy hotels does not mean much to me. Again, I can understand that for some people they do, although I do not know why, but I respect that...

simonbarker87• 6 years ago

The extreme savings/retire early website/guy (can’t remember the name and googling is failing me) essentially uses this for working out how early you can retire by focussing on the percentage of your take home that can be saved/invested rather than out right figures. It’s the thing we (my wife and I) focus on, the percentage left over as discretionary money to be saved, invested or spent as we see fit that matters the most to us.

thestepafter• 6 years ago

Do you mean this guy?

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

quickthrower2• 6 years ago

This might relate to the “look at cash flows not profit” type thinking. Paying people with your post tax money is often expensive. Also paying someone to do my dishes so I can code more is in theory effective, but my brain might be tired and doing dishes myself might be the optimal thing from a humanistic point of view

keiferski8• 6 years ago

Analyses like this just make me think Basic Income will radically shake up civilization more than most people realize. In particular, it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money. This reason alone may explain some of the hostility toward implementing even a rudimentary form of UBI.

Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismissed or ignored as "irrelevant" by a significant amount of people. It would be fantastic if we evaluated the worth of an activity on its beauty, meaning, or another hundred adjectives other than how much money we're losing by doing it.

There is also a pretty robust history of academic literature arguing that culture, art, religion, and pretty much everything else arises from leisure time. Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Pieper is a good read on this.

rtx• 6 years ago

What this doesn't account for is drive. People who enjoy a slow pace will do so. People who are successful now will still be successful then. This is just American exceptionalism thinking it will be different. We already have many countries with social policies better than UBI.

keiferski8• 6 years ago

I didn't have ambition vs. slow paced in mind, more like lucrative vs. meaningful.

As an example: mastering any activity takes years of dedicated practice. Programming, writing, making origami, cooking, you name it. Very rarely does this training align precisely with making a lot, or even any, money. The mastery might itself then lead to actual financial gains, but our current system doesn't optimize for this at all.

valvar• 6 years ago

it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money

I think this is naïve at best, and horribly misguided at worst. Time is money is not just a saying. The fundamental currency, the one thing that ever person needs and wants, is time. That's why it's so tightly coupled with other valuable things such as money. Time and money are essentially the same thing, though of course time is less fungible. And different people with different circumstances are able to expedite their actions with varying efficiency. Time is a more fundamental economic concept than money.

UBI is essentially just socialist redistribution policy in a different guise, and all it will do is obscure (but of course not erase) existing incentive structures.

keiferski8• 6 years ago

I don’t think you’ve quite understood my comment. I am saying that if a significant portion of the population becomes able to survive without needing a job, the overall culture will shift and things that aren’t immediately lucrative will become more popular. Many of these things are fundamentally important but are brushed aside because they fulfill no role in an economically-oriented society.

forgotmypw1710• 6 years ago

Time and money are hardly the same thing. One can easily be stripped away from you in any number of schemes, the other is always with you for as long as you live.

rubidium• 6 years ago

I disagree with the UBI suggestion in the grandparent (and so would pieper if he heard it :)... but your post also has a fatal flaw.

“ The fundamental currency, the one thing that ever person needs and wants, is time.” This is not true of those unfraid of death and at peace with their life choices. Some people reach this at age 18, others 85, and others never.

Being at the bedside of someone who is dying and at peace with it helps one realize time is not the most important thing.

robocat6• 6 years ago

I know a sample of people on “basic income”: they are on unemployment benefits (or similar.)

I am unsure I see any correlation with higher output of culture, art, religion etcetera from those on benefits, even though they may have under-the-table income for necessary tools and consumables.

They often do spend more time on family and friends though.

keiferski8• 6 years ago

The effects of society-wide basic income will be significantly different than just a small subsection of unemployed people. Especially when it comes to social acceptability.

tonyedgecombe2• 6 years ago

I know a sample of people on “basic income”: they are on unemployment benefits (or similar.)

There is a much bigger cohort, that is retirees.

fnord77• 6 years ago

not a great comparison. people on unemployment benefits are under existential stress to find a job. When all you're doing is fretting about when benefits are going to end or spending all your time learning some new trick to become employable, don't expect quality leisure output.

GordonS2• 6 years ago

I don't see how that's a valid comparison - unemployment benefits are barely enough to survive on, and those in receipt are both stigmatised by society and pressured by the government to find a job ASAP.

Basic income is about giving everyone a "no-catches" income that's enough to actually live on, rather than merely survive on.

UncleMeat• 6 years ago

they are on unemployment benefits (or similar.)

Unemployment runs out in a few months and requires you to be actively looking for work. It isn't a stable position where you'd be able to be creative.

nicbou17• 6 years ago

I sincerely doubt that basic income will make us all Victorian-era gentleman scientists and patrons of the arts. I agree with the premise that culture comes from leisure, but realistically, if you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly?

Instead of giving people free money, wouldn't it make more sense to heavily subsidise the basics? Is there any indication that UBI would work better than guaranteeing affordable food, housing and healthcare?

tt433• 6 years ago

Not who you are replying to that's a bit of a strawman: he never said anything about Victorian era gentlemen. The book he mentioned doesn't either, at least in the first few pages. Why do you start talking about that? Usually when other people mis-state what I say, I get pretty angry.

taneq2• 6 years ago

if you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly?

I hear this argument a lot but I don't think it necessarily follows:

- The supply of low end goods (the sort which you can afford with your UBI) is highly automated and will increase rapidly for any small price increase, making their pricing fairly inelastic.

- The demand for these goods won't rise greatly (except for low end luxury / status items, for which UBI makes the difference between people buying and not) since anyone living above a subsistence level is already buying roughly as much as they need (they're just feeling more financial stress now by doing so).

So overall I'd expect we might see a small price rise but nowhere near enough to cancel out the UBI.

throwaway22452• 6 years ago

if you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly?
wouldn't it make more sense to heavily subsidise the basics?

Breaking this down a little:

Industries with monopolist practices can be expected to raise their prices to capture more of this new income. I agree, that seems likely.

In my mind, this would likely include housing/land ownership.

By proposing to subsidise housing instead, you're proposing to effectively give this money directly to landlords instead of to everyone to have their own negotiating power and make their own decision.

But, won't the cost still just rise accordingly, by your theory - won't landlords just pocket that money and demand even more?

It seems more effective to trust people with their own money.

LoathsLights2• 6 years ago

If you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly?

And what if it did? What if we gave every person the money and assets equivalent of the richest man on earth, 113 billion dollars [1]. Now Bezos would only be about twice as rich as the average person. Instead of being 1.13 million times as rich as the average household in the US [0]. Surely the prices would skyrocket, but now we're at a more even playing field.

[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-and-h... [1]: https://www.forbes.com/billionaires

okthenletssee3• 6 years ago

What rewarding experience has zero financial value?

I think you are very wrong about money.

aynyc2• 6 years ago

For me, things such as raising my kids, cooking, fishing, climbing, skiing, reading, drawing terribly, and coding, etc give me rewarding experience and zero financial value. I’m not gifted in any of them, so won’t make money off them other than coding.

paulpauper• 6 years ago

Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismissed or ignored as "irrelevant" by a significant amount of people. It would be fantastic if we evaluated the worth of an activity on its beauty, meaning, or another hundred adjectives other than how much money we're losing by doing it.

If you like birdwatching , awesome, but where ppl object is having to pay for your hobby

CuriousSkeptic3• 6 years ago

Let’s make a deal then. You pay for my birdwatching and I yield my claim to the commons for your private use. You may pollute my air, claim my land, hog my radio spectrum and utilize whatever else of our commons we have fair and equal right to, as long as you pay me for the privilege to call it yours.

cryptica• 6 years ago

> Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value

The most rewarding human experiences I've felt in my life so far have had financial value attached... In fact, they usually involve me receiving some kind of money. Receiving money is the most valuable human experience, especially if I get it for free (the less work I do, the better). Brings tears of joy to my eyes.

The worst human experiences are related to spending money. Especially on overpriced depreciating assets and consumables. The worst is giving money to other people for free. Nothing makes me feel emptier.

Also, when central banks print units of my hard-earned currency and give it for free to other people (without my consent), that infuriates me. For me, it's the human experiential equivalent of getting raped on a daily basis and everyone else cheering on the perpetrator.

tmaly• 6 years ago

Given the current modern monetary theory, how does UBI overcome issue of inflation?

tempestn2• 6 years ago

Looking at net income makes sense, but when it gets into expenses I'm not sure I follow. The idea behind outsourcing is that you can spend additional hours doing paid work. You can't look at your fixed expenses in terms of a fixed amount of each hour's wage if you're increasing the number of hours worked.

Of course, it also assumes that people can choose exactly how many hours they work at their regular hourly rate, which isn't usually the case, but that's a separate quibble.

jpttsn• 6 years ago

Yup this is where this article went off the rails for me.

After-tax income makes sense when income is what you’re taxed by; the day job creates the income and the tax.

But the day job shouldn’t be laden with all costs of living: only the costs of the day job.

The author must know either way more economics than me or way less.

nicbou17• 6 years ago

The idea behind outsourcing is that you can spend additional hours doing paid work

There's a whole section of the article that argues that this is not possible. You can't scale your income up and down on a whim.

Of course, it also assumes that people can choose exactly how many hours they work at their regular hourly rate, which isn't usually the case, but that's a separate quibble.

It doesn't. There's a whole section just about it. Have you read the whole post?

You can't look at your fixed expenses in terms of a fixed amount of each hour's wage if you're increasing the number of hours worked.

There isn't a linear relationship between your gross income and your disposable income, but that doesn't invalidate the calculation.

You could say the same about health insurance and income tax. The former is capped (in Germany) to a certain amount, so it becomes a fixed expense past 56250€ per year. The latter is a progressive tax, so it doesn't grow linearly with your income.

throwaway22452• 6 years ago

Of course, it also assumes that people can choose exactly how many hours they work at their regular hourly rate, which isn't usually the case

It can be the case, but then the trade-off is even worse:

This article suggests calculating your net income as an average rate across all your hours worked.

If you have chosen to increase your hours, you are taxed at the marginal rate on these increased hours, i.e. the highest possible tax rate. Your net income per hour is reduced - as such, you are undervaluing your own time.

tempestn2• 6 years ago

Right, yes. My point though is that for this kind of value of time calculation to make any sense, you need to assume the amount of work for money someone can do is variable. Otherwise the amount you earn at work is essentially irrelevant when you're looking at the opportunity cost of spending time on something. So then if you are going to look at your net hourly earnings at work, I don't see how it makes any sense to consider all your expenses on the basis of per hour worked.

dmantis• 6 years ago

As mostly said in the article, the first and biggest expense is taxes. However, taxes amount heavily depends on location you live and possible tax optimisations you can use in your position.

For example it may vary in 10x+ times between entrepreneur/nomad in low tax jurisdiction and hired worker in high-tax jurisdiction. Maybe it's smarter to choose country (state in US case) with lowest taxes/highest return than suffering from 30%+ cut.

I agree with the author about skills in general, but not every thing we do apart from the job bring us joy and satisfaction. Sometimes it's more convenient to just pay for the work.

forgotmypw1710• 6 years ago

When you do it yourself, you have the ability to ensure it is done right.

When you pay someone else, they,re bound to cut corners as soon as you turn your head.

The choice is obvious to me.

nicbou17• 6 years ago

Professionals cut corners to cut costs. I accidentally chop them off because I'm tired and incompetent.

forgotmypw1710• 6 years ago

tired because you have traded away your sleeping time for money?

poma882• 6 years ago

Pay someone to keep fridge full and house clean. You gain half a life more.

isamuel• 6 years ago

The only correct points in here are 3 and 4 but they’re said in a really roundabout way.

You don’t sell “time” for money. You sell labor. To do that you need a buyer. Most buyers purchase in bulk, and in many fields, want “requirements agreements”—you’ll produce as much as we need. Selling a little bit of labor power is often like trying to sell one bean. Doesn’t work that way.

That’s all you need.

depablo2• 6 years ago

I don't agree with the point you made about groceries. These costs are always fixed. No matter how much you earn. And therefore they are irrelevant to the opportunity cost.

For reference, if you earn 20k a month, your grocery expenses will roughly stay the same to earning 5k a month. They won't be 35% of your income (that would be 7000€ of groceries for 20k of income). Working more hours does not result in higher grocery costs.

nicbou17• 6 years ago

Static expenses also affect your disposable income. You can't pay someone with the money that's allocated to rent.

Insurance is also a static cost past a certain income. Income tax is progressive. You still consider those. It just makes the gross/disposable income relationship non-linear.

depablo2• 6 years ago

Yes, but static expenses don't make a difference for opportunity costs. You have to pay these costs either way.

Trading Time for Money

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