Frugal Living - January 2017 Part 1

I found this tweet recently by one of the leaders of 4 Word Women:

Sandra C. Williamson ‏@SandraCrW  17h17 hours ago

Time is more critical than money. You can make more money. Time's a nonrenewable resource. Once you’ve spent it, it's gone so use it wisely.

This is interesting in the context that as I've been reading Penny Hoarder and Money Saving Mom, there's this creeping desire to want to spend time making more money.  There are so many apps, side hustles, freelance, etc that are highly time consuming and I have to wonder - at what point will we be satisfied?  When we reach our drop dead money point?  This being the point where we have enough to retire and can walk away from full time jobs.  Even then, would it be enough?

The more time I spend in my basement, working at my full time job and then doing any side jobs it's less time to spend with my family.

Recently I went through photos of our 2016 year, getting them organized and uploaded to Shutterfly to make photo books.  There was a free book but I just couldn't seem to find the time to upload enough photos to  make the book.  When my husband called for dinner each night, I went and didn't come back to my computer and missed the free book.  I'm sure there will be more free books this year.

Last year I spent an enormous amount of time preparing for consignment sales and probably earned $2 or 3.00 per hour when I was done.  It's just not worth my time.  I have some items already priced from last year and ready to go so I'll probably take those over when the next sale comes up but I'd rather donate the bulk of my items and write off the value on my taxes.  It's far less time consuming and I still feel like I'm getting something for our stuff.  I can't bring myself to throw things into the landfill that might be helpful to someone.  We are very serious around here about composting, recycling and keeping our landfill footprint as small as possible.

Time is important and we don't know how much of it we have left.  My dad died at 58.  If I died the same year, I'd only have 17 years left.  Both of my grandmothers died at 50, which would give me 7 years remaining.  I want to spend it with my family having great experiences.  There are also a few friends I need to reach out to this year.  I'm looking forward to more time spent away from my computer.