What's Your Minimum Wage?

These days, I'm spending many of my 168 hours writing a book about money. As I've been doing my research, I've realized that the internet is chock full of silly suggestions for saving small amounts of cash. Spend all afternoon running to different stores to save $2 on toilet paper! Cut dryer sheets in half -- as if dryer sheets are a major component of anyone's budget. Save scraps of soap to wet together into a new bar, and pocket a grand total of $5 per year.
So when a friend sent me a link to a website called "Money Saving Mom,?€? I assumed it would be more of the same. I believe I said something like "great, she'll probably tell me to make my own soup stock.?€? Then I clicked over and, to my surprise, found an article called "Why I Don't Make Homemade Tortillas.?€?

Here's the explanation from blogger Crystal Paine: "Here in Kansas, we can pretty routinely pick up a package of 8-10 tortillas for around $1. When I priced out the ingredients of homemade tortillas, I figured up that it would likely cost me around $0.30 to $0.40 per batch. .... To make 8-10 tortillas from start to finish would likely take me around 30 minutes. At that rate, I'd be spending 30 minutes of my time to save around $0.60 to $0.70 total.?€?

In other words, she'd be earning a wage of $1.40 an hour, or maybe $2 if you price that out before taxes. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. As she put it, "Personally, if I'm not saving at least $20 per hour by implementing a particular frugal practice, than I'd rather invest my time elsewhere. .... If I'm doing something primarily for the money saved, then it is important to me that I'm actually saving money!?€?

I like this idea of setting our own minimum wage. In our quest to be good stewards of money, we often forget that time is valuable too. We shoo the kids outside -- without us -- so we can spend a Saturday scrubbing because a cleaning service is a "waste?€? of money. We buy food we don't like because we have a coupon for it. People who charge $100 an hour will wait in a 30-minute line on free cone day at Ben & Jerry's. Why?

A better approach is to figure out roughly what your time is worth (or what you'd like it to be worth). If you earn $80,000 a year, that's roughly $40 an hour. If doing something yourself isn't netting you $27 or so per hour (the after-tax take) then it's below your minimum wage. If you love doing it, fine -- we all spend money on things we enjoy. But don't fool yourself that you're saving a whole lot. Many of us can make more money. None of us can make more time -- and so the latter should be treated with the respect it deserves.

Related:

• Outsource Your Way To Success
• Why You Should Make A Bucket List
• 5 Things To Do With 5 Minutes (Other Than Read This Post)

Photo courtesy flickr user, bfishadow