Monday, December 04, 2006

Time=Money

If you are about to go out and add to your credit cards ( which ofcourse you are not are you?), have a look at sort it website, it is by a political party in the UK but offers some useful tools to tackle debt and consumer spending. It has a useful monthly cash planner too.

An alternative to giving money as a present is to offer people a printable gift voucher. You can print your own off here. Some suggestions are as follows:
❑ 5 hours of cleaning, ironing
❑ cook someone a meal
❑ supply 6 eggs weekly for a month
❑ redeem against some plants in spring
❑ help for a declutter weekend
❑ 3 hours of painting
❑ digging your garden
❑ spring cleaning
❑ baby sitting
❑ window cleaning
❑ sewing, breadmaking, flower arranging lesson whatever your talent

One family in our village for instance is being offered a weekly cleaning service while her husband is off to Iraq on duty. This will relieve this Mum from some chores. Each week a new bunch of flowers will be added by another person. The biggest impact on others need not be made by money but by giving your time and showing you care.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

that sort it website is great! for anyone really interested in developing a deep understanding of the relationship between time and money, Your Money or Your Life is the book to read. it was published in the early 90s and i think has become something of a classic read/practice in terms of downshifting and radical simplicity. it requires assigning a value of "life energy spent" (in hours) to time spent working and to every category of purchase.

anyway...i'm midway through and it's kicking me in the butt (in a good, motivational kind of way). i'm also looking at having a buy-little-to-nothing holiday season, so your thoughts on time vouchers are helpful.

thanks! n

Downshiftingpath said...

I have read that book as well Nik and it is s great starting point, should stop you spending money like water and if you want that TV and realise that you would need to spend 4 days doing a job you do not like it certainly kicks your perspective in place. Remember to pay yourself first.