Time is completely out of our control. We are born into this earth and before we can accomplish all we want to accomplish, we die. However, as human beings, we think that we can buy away our problems. Whether we admit it or not, we genuinely do think that we could just buy our way out of even the inevitable. This is the reason I have recently found interest and had my curiosity sparked by time and how much we are willing to spend for it. How much is our time worth? Of course there's the sentimental side of this question that speaks of spending time with people to build relationships that are priceless. However, I am focussed on the actual number value of time. If time had a price, what would it be? What is the consumer psychology of someone who is buying time?
I'm a guitarist and I love the feeling of getting a new guitar. A few months ago I saw a guitar online that I had been searching for. It was very rare to find this model being sold, so I added it to my cart and went through to the shipping and handling. I saw that I could do the regular shipping which was $80 and would take 3 weeks to get to me. The other option was $130 for 1 week of waiting for my new guitar. I was met with a dilemma. Was I really about to spend an extra $50 just to get this guitar 2 weeks sooner? Would those 2 weeks really have been so unbearable without that guitar? You're probably wondering what I ended up doing. I spent those $50 and got that guitar in 1 week. This is something we actually face everyday.
Another example is buying something from a convenience store. You could spend the time walking through a grocery store and buy a snack for $1 or you could stop at that gas station and spend $2 for that same snack. It's not much, but that adds up and the mindset doesn't change. Because we're willing to spend extra just for the convenience of being manipulated by the business.
What are some instances where you have spent extra just to save yourself some time or maybe even buy yourself some more time?
Whenever I am sick (Not covid, just a little under the weather), I think before I call out of work, "Would I be willing to pay XYZ to stay home today? " and decide from there what I need to do and what my time is worth to me. Having to make decisions based on the value we put on our time is something we face every day.
Really enjoyed reading your post!
Time may be out of our control, but so is pretty much everything else. Time is our most precious and valuable resource. Adam Smith, the great economist he was, said that it's better to buy something that would cost you more to make yourself. I don't think Adam Smith would have spent the $50, and also think getting gouged at a convince store should fall into the category of the stupid tax, but to each their own.
It would be easy to imagine countless people buying a few extra things they otherwise wouldn't to get "free shipping" from Amazon an everywhere else, why wouldn't we? If we put something in our carts, odds are we wanted it anyway and if we were going to pay $8-12 in shipping, we might as well get the extra few items right?
I like this idea! This helped me gain a different perspective on if money can buy time. I've constantly caved into getting my clothes online through express shipping purely due to impatience, but often there are some items that I buy due to a desperate need as well.
Great post! I think often about how time and attention seem to be the true currency of our world. When we 'pay attention' to something, we pay for that experience with our time. Aside from making me eerily self-aware of what I deem important enough to buy with my time, this ideology correlates with your point that time is everything, and sometimes priceless to us (would you have paid more than $50 extra?). I find it interesting that when it comes to getting food in a timely manner or online shopping, we are so reluctant to give up any more time than we absolutely have to. However, when it comes to social media or movies or music (or distractions), we spend our time like we have plenty of it. Very interesting!
I can think of a few ways that I’ve spent more in order to receive an item in less time. There have been a few time-sensitive instances where I needed to order a gift, but I waited too long, and it cost me more to receive it sooner. In other cases, I’ve spent more on an item at one place where I could have bought it cheaper at another location just because it would have taken more time and gas to travel to the other destination.