What is the value of time? Gawd. Is there ever so ridiculously obvious and simply complex question? Time is all we have. We trade it for so little, and also for so many vital things. Allow me to try to be practical and pragmatic about it, at least as applies to my reality.

Track every penny. That’s advice I’ve heard from many. I also tracked it before I was told to. Being a student can do that. In the long lost era of cash and checks it was hard to not know how much money was going into and out of the bank. Being oblivious was in fashion then, too, but then it took skill. Now, subscriptions, fees, autopay, direct deposit, and only online reporting make it easy to ignore the process of income and expense. Running over? That’s what credit is for. Isn’t it?

Track every minute. I’ve never heard that one. Being aware of every minute is more daunting despite the philosophical insights and worldview it can provide. What wonder is a flower, or the leaves and stem that enable it, or the seed at its source, or the previous flower that created it? My yard has thousands of flowers and I don’t, I can’t, dwell on every one.

It makes sense to follow the money. Money, or at least assets and worth, are required in our society and civilization. If you have more than enough money you can spend your time more freely. If you have more time but not enough money the pressure is on to spend more time on making more money.

How long does it take to account for every penny? That depends on the person, but that act requires an expense of a life being lived for something artificial. 

I think it makes sense to track every penny – for a while. Gain that awareness, but don’t be enslaved to it, unless your necessities necessitate it.

I no longer track every penny. Every week or so I track my account balances to see if anything significant up or down has gone one. Usually, nothing dramatic happens.

I can’t find the quote but it goes something like this. “If you’re going to be poor, be realy poor.” Why wallow on that border between poor and not poor if you’re not making progress? I do Not recommend that, but I understand it. Being on that borderline becomes a moment by moment awareness of not having enough, guarding what you’ve got, and vainly working on and wondering about getting more, or at least enough.

A couple of months ago I sold my house. My net worth dropped by about the amount of the commissions, the other expenses of moving, and un-deferring many deferred expenses. Next week begins another round of dealing with deferred issues as I finally have appointments with doctors and dentists. I can afford that because of the equity I had in my house and the relief I got from only buying a tiny house. The cash in the account has already improved my health. My apologies to my previous doctor. My new one should thank the old one for getting me this far.

Tracking every penny seems silly compared to the arm-waving that is done with negotiating prices and commissions. One contractor’s bill was probably inflated by ~50% according to some folks familiar with the work. That’s a contractor who won’t get anymore work from me. It would have made more sense to spend the time negotiating with the contractor than counting every penny. (Regardless, I consider the work worth it because it limited the likelihood of much larger damages from a threat to the house.)

Just playing with numbers. If you have a $100,000 portfolio, maybe your IRA, a 1% change is $1,000. That’s a lot of pennies. How long would it take to track those hundred thousand pennies? How long did it take to decide on that investment in that IRA? 

How long do some people spend planning a vacation? 

I am not a minimalist’s minimalist, but compared to many I get by with very little. I’ve been in my tiny house (MyTinyExperiment.com) for about two months and have yet to fill every cupboard and closet. There are a lot of things in storage, but that’s getting winnowed at my own pace in my own time. The storage unit costs ~$200/month. The value of some of the items is substantial, but not needed yet. Some items are required to be stored by law. A lot is irreplaceable. Heirlooms happen. So do certain books.

The time I spend there won’t decrease the monthly rent until I lose about a third of it. That will be awhile. It is a box of assets with various doubtful values.

Two hundred dollars a month is about seven dollars a day. (Let me check the math: $7×30=$210.) Some people will see the difference in $7 at the end of a day. They may not have much more. How many people don’t know if their grocery bill was accurate to $7? How much did dinner out cost? How much did that shower cost in terms of water and heating it for a shower?

The biggest savings I’ve seen were the things I’ve decided not to buy. A simpler car saved thousands, and fewer anxieties. An electric bike might happen, but my thirty-year-old pedal bike has moved me across countries and over mountains. Dining in rather than dining out may not be socially fashionable, but tonight’s fish and veggie rice bowl from scratch tasted better than a $35 chef’s made dinner from a restaurant, at least for me. The drink was cheaper too.

Once upon a time in an online stock market discussion I was asked to lament about my largest losses. Many of us had just lost most of our holdings in a crash. My biggest mistakes weren’t stocks that went down 99.99%. My biggest mistakes were from not trusting myself and talking myself out of buying Bitcoin at $220, SBUX when it was young, the same with PIXR, AOL/AMER; or selling FFIV, etc. Pennies are important, but I spent too little time applying what I know. I allowed myself to be stymied from selling at peaks, and not buying at troughs. It hasn’t been absolute. Look a few sentences back; I’ve frequently lost >99% but I sold FFIV at $44 and it went to over $240. Gains, if they happen, can cover lots of losses. That is a big IF.

There are jokes and memes about how much a minute is worth to Elon Musk. (A quick search comes up with $6,887/minute. – wionews.com)

How much is your time worth? If a minute spent with finances save you a penny was it worth it? If a minute spent with a friend strengthens that friendship was it worth it? 

Go ahead. If you’ve never tracked every penny for one month (~one billing cycle), then it can be an education. But, at some point, decide if time is more important. Are people more important? Is life more important? And if you are on the knife edge I am lucky enough to have gotten off of, trust yourself to know if the penny or the second is more important. None of us can know that as well as you can.