{"id":72680,"date":"2015-05-09T11:20:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-09T17:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=72680"},"modified":"2024-02-23T15:58:13","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T22:58:13","slug":"2015-05-09-time-daily-motivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2015-05-09-time-daily-motivation","title":{"rendered":"The Best Way to Value Your Time (+ Some Daily Motivation!)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I hate the term YOLO&#8230;with a passion.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who are unfamiliar, this overused acronym stands for &#8220;You Only Live Once,&#8221; and has become the millennial version of &#8220;<em>carpe diem<\/em>&#8221; ever since a few rappers made it popular in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Why do I hate it, you ask?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s why.<\/p>\n<p><em>I hate the term YOLO because it diminishes the true meaning of the words that it is meant to represent. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>YOLO is plastered on everything from T-Shirts to tattoos. However, the concept only seems to be summoned when a high school senior\u00a0needs an excuse to skip class, or a strict paleo dieter wants a reason to order a Venti Mocha Frapp from Starbucks.<\/p>\n<p>YOLO has become an excuse&#8230;a cop out.<\/p>\n<p>However, acknowledging the idea that <em>you only live once<\/em> is much more than that&#8230;it is literally life changing (no pun intended). As a matter of fact, it is the sole reason that I\u00a0took control of my personal finances a year and a half ago and found real estate.<\/p>\n<h2>The Time You Have (in JellyBeans)<\/h2>\n<p>A lot of people ask me why I decided to start investing in real estate.\u00a0Well, I can safely say\u00a0that a large part of the reason was thanks to a YouTube video.<\/p>\n<p>Yup. You heard me correctly.<\/p>\n<p>I know what you are thinking. But Tyler, isn&#8217;t YouTube nothing but cat videos and terrible acoustic covers of pop songs? You&#8217;d be wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Please watch this.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Time You Have (In JellyBeans)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BOksW_NabEk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Do I have your attention yet?<\/p>\n<p>I thought so.<\/p>\n<h2>You Only Live Once<\/h2>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Is your life tied to your W-2 income? <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Are you trading your time for your money? <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Are you putting cash away in your savings account hoping that your interest rate will beat out inflation? <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Are you relying on a 401k or Social Security to save the day when you&#8217;re face to face with retirement? <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Are you interested in traveling the world instead of just taking vacations? <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Are you treating your home as your best investment?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Do you think that <a href=\"http:\/\/teespring.com\/new-biggerpockets#pid=6&amp;cid=629&amp;sid=back\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">life was meant to be lived in a cubicle<\/a>?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If any of these apply to you, I urge you to use the video above as motivation. Get out there, start reading, and create some passive income through real estate for yourself and your family.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who have already seen the light when it comes to investing in real estate, let&#8217;s talk about the value of your time.<\/p>\n<h2>How Much is Your Time Worth?<\/h2>\n<p>It was back when I was a little kid that I realized I valued my <em>time<\/em> much more than my money. I still remember wondering why my folks always drove out of their way in order to go to the gas station that was a few cents cheaper per gallon.<\/p>\n<p>It just didn&#8217;t make sense to me.<\/p>\n<p>Now that I&#8217;m older, and maybe a tad bit wiser, it has all started to become a lot more clear.<\/p>\n<p><em>Different people value their time and their money differently<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are some ways to actually quantify the value of your time in order to make decisions a little bit easier.<\/p>\n<p>If you haven&#8217;t done much thinking about this concept, check out the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/programs.clearerthinking.org\/what_is_your_time_really_worth_to_you.html#.VUi5K61Viko\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Time and Money Calculator<\/a>\u00a0from the good people over at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clearerthinking.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ClearerThinking.org<\/a>. Instead of merely dividing your salary by the number of hours you work in a week, this 10 minute long survey takes a systematic look at all of the variables involved in determining the value of your time.<\/p>\n<h2>The Way Forward<\/h2>\n<p>Most of us small time real estate investors don&#8217;t have salaried employees working under us. We don&#8217;t have a secretary, a marketing division, and full-time handyman. This means that we have to take special consideration into what jobs we outsource, and what jobs we take on ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>Once you have completed the Time and Money Calculator, here are a few exercises to get you thinking about how you can use this time value in your everyday investing life.<\/p>\n<p>Lets say that the value of your time = <strong>$45\/hour<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The door knob at one of your rentals broke.\n<ul>\n<li>Option A &#8211; DIY\n<ul>\n<li>Cost: -$10 for parts<\/li>\n<li>Time: -1.5 hours for travel &amp; repair<\/li>\n<li>Total Cost of Time\/Money: <strong>-$77.50<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Option B &#8211; Outsource\n<ul>\n<li>Cost: -$75 for a handyman<\/li>\n<li>Time: 0 hours<\/li>\n<li>Total Cost of Time\/Money: <strong>-$75.00<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re considering buying\u00a0Quickbooks, or continuing to use your system of bookkeeping\n<ul>\n<li>Option A &#8211; Buy Quickbooks\n<ul>\n<li>Cost: -$13\/month<\/li>\n<li>Time Saved: +3 hours\/month<\/li>\n<li>Total Cost of Time\/Money Saved: <strong>+$122.00\/month<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Option B &#8211; Continue to use Excel\n<ul>\n<li>Cost: $0\/month<\/li>\n<li>Time Saved: 0 hours<\/li>\n<li>Total Cost of Time\/Money Saved: <strong>$0.00\/month<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re in the market for cheap flooring\n<ul>\n<li>Option A &#8211; Drive across the city to a wholesale store in order to purchase 100sf of wood laminate @ $1.79\/sq ft. Round trip takes 1.5 hours.\n<ul>\n<li>Cost: <strong>-$179 for flooring<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Time:<strong>-$67.50 for travel<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Total Cost of Time\/Money: <strong>-$246.50<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Option B &#8211;\u00a0Drive just down the street in\u00a0order to purchase 100sf of wood laminate @ $2.50\/sq ft. Round trip takes 30.\n<ul>\n<li>Cost: <strong>-$250 for flooring<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Time: <strong>-$22.50 for travel<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Total Cost of Time\/Money: <strong>-$272.50<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>There are no right or wrong answers to these scenarios&#8230;they are merely a tool to start thinking about the types of time\/value decisions\u00a0that we unknowingly make\u00a0every day.<\/p>\n<p>For example, in scenario #1, it is cheaper to hire out the labor than to do it yourself. But what if you really enjoy fixing door knobs? Well, then by all means do it. This is a guide, not a rule of law.<\/p>\n<p>However, I urge all of us to reach for consistency whenever we can. If we are willing to drive all the way across town to save $26 on flooring, why would we NOT be willing to purchase a software for $13\/month that could potentially save us $122 every month?<\/p>\n<p><strong>By setting a dollar value for each hour of our time, it helps us to make\u00a0quantifiable decisions about how to spend our time instead of abdicating that responsibility to our own biases.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hate the term YOLO&#8230;with a passion. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this overused acronym stands for &#8220;You Only Live Once,&#8221; and has become the millennial version of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4192,"featured_media":72727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-development"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}