If you knew the true cost of money your choices may be a lot different. I believe the true cost of money is time.
There is a saying, “if you can not measure it, you can not manage it.” There are a lot of items measured in time:
- Hours – 60 minutes
- Days – 24 hours
- Year – 365 days
- Age – number of days and years
- Music – beats per bar (2/4, 3,4, 4/4, 6/4, 7/4)
- Speed – mile per hours (MPH)
- Distance – light-years (186286 miles per second)
- Heart – beats per second
- Season’s – summer, fall, winter, spring
- Money – dollars per hour
Simply put, time is the most valuable commodity available to man. I would go as far as to say time is the currency of life. If time stops so does life and existence. At the end of a man’s life, he usually wishes he had more time; time with friends, family, loved ones but altogether, time. Time is the one factor all men posses equally. What you do with your time is limited to you. You can not buy more time, borrow time, or give time away. You are limited to the number of seconds, days, and years granted to you on this earth and when it is gone, your life is over. One of the items we exchange for our time is money.
Every time I go to work I am exchanging my most valuable commodity, time, for money. This is why I make so much money-per-hour or money-per-year. So the true cost of money is time.
Here is the question I would like to ask. If I measure money in time when it is earned, why don’t I measure money in time when it’s spent? For example, I make $10.00 an hour and I work 8 hours a day; I make $80.00 before taxes about $60 after taxes. Now when I spend my $60 I don’t measure it in time I measure what I spend in dollars. But shouldn’t I know how much time I spent as well? I mean it does take time to get money and time is my most valuable commodity. Using the above example $60.00 is equivalent to one day and $120 to two days. This has so much more of a meaning than only acknowledging spending $60 or $120. For example, those shoes that cost $120.00 you just gotta have. If your boss paid you with those shoes at the end of two days would you be okay with that? If not, then why would you spend that amount at a store? It is virtually the same thing.
The true cost of money is time. When you associate money with time it makes a big difference. Ask yourself how many hours, days or weeks are you wearing? How many weeks is your car note? What about your rent/mortgage payment? Your last date, how many hours did it cost you? How many hours are those Jordans, Coach bag, rims, bling? Remember when you think about it, you will never get back time. It is gone forever. When you are on your death bed and you wish you had more time, ask yourself, was that purchase really worth it?
