Reflections on the Time-Money Tradeoff
By Melissa Davidson
A new college graduate, a former executive and an economist wandered into a Zoom room and pondered the trade-offs of money versus time when trying to live an integrated life.
What’s an integrated life? A life that acknowledges that work and life are like interconnected gears that are all turning together creating a complex system where a change in one gear has an impact on the whole. Work-Life Integration is also what ThirdPath has become an expert in since being founded 25 years ago.
Back to the Zoom room and the lively discussion that took place at our recent LIVE with Thursdays with ThirdPath event.
The diverse perspectives each participant brought to the time and money tradeoff discussion helped surface several great themes. What do we value as individuals and families? What does our society value and promote? How are we supported in pursuing what’s important to us.
- When faced with the opportunity to spend more time with grandchildren via a sabbatical from work, but it comes with a significant cut in pay, what do you do?
- When striking out with a shiny new degree and all of the possibilities in the world ahead of you, do you work like a dog to prove your value, or do you begin to practice work-life integration skills?
- When you have a formidable career with an incredible income, do you walk away to pursue simpler joys? What does this mean to you as an individual? And what will other people think?
The time-money tradeoff is complex and extremely personal. It also forces us to define, or redefine, success. Is success earning enough money to stand on your own two feet, depend on no one else, pay your own way, and enjoy the finer things in life? Or maybe you measure success by investing time to create strong bonds with the people you love and the simpler experiences that make up a well-lived life. Likely it’s something in between.
Many people believe they need to “sacrifice” time in order to earn money, or vice versa. Words matter, and “sacrifice” implies that we have given up something important. But our cross-generational Zoom group began to reframe this idea and instead think more in terms of trade-offs. Doing this allowed us to see things more from the lens of a choice.
For example, inter-generational and community living is a growing trend in the U.S., and one that has existed for centuries in other cultures. Living this way helps create an expanded network of support and creates a wider range of affordable living arrangements. Hybrid and remote work also support this trend. Is this a sacrifice? Or is this an opportunity to deepen our connections with the people we most care about?
We each talked about the intentional choices we were making around time and money and recognized that all of our choices were extremely personal, and that they reflected the complex and interconnected factors that reflect where we currently are in our work-life integration journeys.
This conversation got me thinking about my own family, and how my husband has forgone a higher earning potential in part because his current job has a predictable and mostly flexible 40 hour/week schedule and no travel. He and I both value his presence at home more than the things a higher salary would let us purchase.
I am also fortunate to work part-time for an organization that is happy to let me “time shift” my hours around unexpected family needs. I too could work more so we could re-do our deck, get new kitchen cabinets, fix up the car, go on a cruise, or go on more date nights that require babysitters. Instead, we chose to live simply and to say yes to help from our parents, who live nearby and love being involved in their grandchildren’s lives.
It is a different version of success than I imagined as a younger person. But it is success to us because it reflects our top value of quality time as a family at every life stage.
Every individual and family will have different values and priorities. There is no right or wrong answer. But when you stay mindful of your values and goals, it will likely help guide you to a time-money tradeoff that doesn’t feel like a sacrifice, but instead an opportunity to reach for the things you most value.
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