Inspired to minimise my expenditures and be more aware of my spending habits I wrote a small chrome extension.
"Pay with life" extension replaces any prices in the online stores with amount of time it would take me to earn that money. As an example, if I earn 42m per hour and pay no taxes, then a pair of new shoes that costs 42m on ebay would cost 1 hour of my time. If I do, however, pay approx %30 in taxes, the 42m shoes would cost me more than 1 hour.
This extension currently supports US dollars, GB pounds and euros. Please note that some prices might still not be converted properly.
Play around with it and let me know your thoughts! I do look forward to all the feedback ;)
Just a heads up!
For me a big mental change was switching to pre-paid goal/checking-accounts for everything I need, and having big long term, aggressive goals. I do this with Simple "bank" (though I hope to find a more feature rich app to do it in the future). This helps me consistently feel "broke as hell", which has proved to be quite effective to saving. Furthermore, I plan all purchases weeks in advance and budget for everything, food, luxury, bills, etc.
I haven't used this extension for a prolonged time yet so I cannot really say if it would prevent spending.
I have made, however, the following observations: - For me, being a professional, most learning materials (books, courses, etc.) cost minutes of my life but I get infinite(?) value. I am happy to buy these things without a second thought now (before, I would enter analysis/paralysis mode deciding whether I need it and wasting more time on indecision) - My dream car is approximately 10 years away of hard work (suddenly it seems to be more achievable) - If I was a low wage worker (or student/apprentice), even the cheapest items would steal a lot of time from my life
On a salary you're never not off the clock. It makes the time/money conversion less clear. It's not like you can say: I would buy a new TV, but I'll take a week off of work instead.
In your particular example, it made me realise that if we were to pay for items with our time we would need some sort of anchor (something to compare to). Perhaps, I would thing along the lines: "Oh, I would need to work 2 weeks to get this Super UHD. Or, I could just work for 1 week and get this simpler UHD. That would save one week of my life. Perhaps I could go on a short holidays? Yeah... let's go for the simpler version".
No it's not just $20 -- it's $20 PLUS the time you need to endure to earn that $20. And this time is what really counts -- the seconds, minutes, hour(s) you give away for that $20 whatever - the time you won't get back -- EVER!!!
For me, the only way to look at things is through time. Time is my most precious asset and it took me way too many years to figure this out and to re-set my mindset. It's where all the "passive income" stuff comes from -- from having something to endure time for your account, so you don't have to.
IMO this should be must-have on every browser, every (web)store right next to price: "$20 or approx. 2h of your life"
I have better understanding of money/time relationship after reading "The Millionaire Fastlane" by M.J. DeMarco which I highly recommend.
Thank you for your kind words. I remember some time ago there was an innovative solution to inform consumers of empty calories in chocolate bars. It was proposed to add a label on packaging about the time it would take a person to exercise in order to burn those calories. My point is - the day when these labels are back will be the day when an extension like this might be considered to be included in browsers.
I recommend you to take it for a test ride - install it and try it on Bugatti cars, private jets, mansions or anything really. Essentially, see how much you can sacrifice of your life to get your dream come true. I hope you find it less depressing :)
You've got some bugs to work out but this is a very fun and useful idea.
