Werth-It Fundraising Blog

My fifth observation about rich people is that they tend to trade money for time.  A lot of people do the reverse, they’ll trade time for money, that is, they’ll drive an hour to save a dollar.  Now, if they did the math, it might occur to them that their time is worth more than a dollar an hour, but saving money is so important to them that they’ll trade their valuable time for it.

Rich people do the reverse.  Wealthy people feel that they can always earn more money, but they can never earn a single more minute of time.  So, they’ll trade their money for time.  They’ll invest in something that will save them time. 

For example, a wealthy woman lives in a major city.  Commuting to work takes her an hour.  She hires someone to drive her, because she knows that she can do more in an hour on the phone than she can driving in traffic.  If she can make just one more sale a week at just $1,000 profit, it behooves her to pay someone $50 an hour to drive her. 

Often, wealthy people justify these costs financially.  A wealthy man told me that he has the chef of a local resort come over once a week and prepare a week’s worth of meals for the family.  It costs $125 a week (plus food), and if it saves them eating out just two meals a week at $65 a meal, it justifies the cost.

How can you trade money for time?  If it costs you $50 a week to have a maid come over and clean for an hour, could you do something with that hour that is worth more to you than $50?  Perhaps, but first you need to see that your money is replaceable, your time is not.