Based on Part 1 of this post, I showed that making your own sandwiches at home beats buying the premade version. However, I did not really include the monetary value of the time it takes to make the sandwiches yourself.
I've thought alot about this and you can look at things in the traditional sense of calculating your true hourly wage and determine how much money you are losing by doing things yourself. For example, if my true hourly wage is $6.50 per hour then making 4 sandwiches costs me $2.82-$3.79 at a total time cost of 26-35 minutes. This increases the cost of the homemade sandwiches to between $12.04 and $13.01. This is still cheaper than the premade version, but that's not really the point of part 2.
The point is I don't think it makes sense to include that time-money component unless you were going to do something during that time that would make you money.
For example, had I chosen the premade option, I would have used the 8-10 minutes I really spent making my sandwiches by eating it in the lunchroom at work while watching TV or reading the newspaper. In essence, this time would be wasted. I would much rather spend the time doing something I feel is productive and/or gives me a positive feeling about making good choices. Unless you are using the time you save by going the convenience route productively, then the time spent doing it yourself and the time wasted from TV, etc... cancel out and should not really be considered in cost calculations.
Trent at The Simple Dollar recently discussed the dollars we assign to our time.
I've thought alot about this and you can look at things in the traditional sense of calculating your true hourly wage and determine how much money you are losing by doing things yourself. For example, if my true hourly wage is $6.50 per hour then making 4 sandwiches costs me $2.82-$3.79 at a total time cost of 26-35 minutes. This increases the cost of the homemade sandwiches to between $12.04 and $13.01. This is still cheaper than the premade version, but that's not really the point of part 2.
The point is I don't think it makes sense to include that time-money component unless you were going to do something during that time that would make you money.
For example, had I chosen the premade option, I would have used the 8-10 minutes I really spent making my sandwiches by eating it in the lunchroom at work while watching TV or reading the newspaper. In essence, this time would be wasted. I would much rather spend the time doing something I feel is productive and/or gives me a positive feeling about making good choices. Unless you are using the time you save by going the convenience route productively, then the time spent doing it yourself and the time wasted from TV, etc... cancel out and should not really be considered in cost calculations.
Trent at The Simple Dollar recently discussed the dollars we assign to our time.
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