Time Budget Experiment!

[Pumba's Truth]

Ok so the DW and I had our quarterly meeting just over a week ago. This is where we review how the present budget has been working out, where we stand financially, debt, investments, spending ... yadda yadda.

And ... we talk about where we stand with major projects, both personal and household.

This is where we were a bit concerned. Although last quarter we had great intentions of making things happen around the house, with regards to renovations and consistently getting chores completed, we were just not cutting it.

When looking into the reasons why we came up with a new tool to assist us in making realistic goals. This tool also allows us to clearly see how much time is actually available to us.

A lot of folks know about Financial budgets, they are based on the money in and money out stuff right? But what about time? How do we account for our time?

I've seen my family, along with several other families, go through life day by day and never seem to make any dramatic progress. Only to look back and be like "Where did the time go?"

In creating a Time Budget we basically have 3 sections just like most financial budgets:

• Income - The amount of time you are not scheduled at your job. The time at your job is not yours so you can't count it towards anything, this includes travel to and from.
• Fixed Expenses - This is the time that you going to use each and every week regardless of anythingelse. For example:
  
  • Daily prep work. In may case it's laying out the stuff for the next day, getting my lunch organized, getting ready for bed, doing final kitchen clean up.
  • Fitness elements. In my case I workout 4 times a week minimum. So I have to factor in 2 hrs 4 nights a week for travel and workout.
  • Meals. Yeah well we have to eat right? So we factor in 30 min. for dinner (not including prep). Different amounts for differnt meals during the day.
  • Meal Prep. Ahhh ... yeah if it's your duty, or day as it is in my house, to prep the meal you have to factor that time in as well.
  • ADW. This may be something unique to my family. But something we just started is After Dinner Walks, every dinner.
  • Chores. There are daily, weekly chores. Factor the time in, it's amazing how much these little chores can take up. But don't worry it'll be worth while taking a look at them all.
  • Activities. This can be anything from sports, hobbies, to kids scouts meetings, cheerleading practice, dance, whatever is a scheduled activity that takes time should be accounted for.
• Variable Expenses: These are the tasks, items that factor into your Useable time. Things like:
  
  • Television. Yep most of us have some shows that we like to watch, one may argue that you have to watch them, but really you can survive/live without. So they have to come out here.
  • Blogging. This could be a fixed expense, but it really is a case by case basis.
  • Reading. Yep this is just like TV folks.
  • Playing. Yeah I know, but still it has to come from some where.
  • Household Tasks. Not Chores. So renovations, that busted tap, sorting, spring cleaning, fall cleaning, winterizing. You get the picture. Stuff that doesn't happen on a consistent basis.
  • Basically anything else you can think of that you spend time doing.

Realistically, I wouldn't expect you to come up with a list of your variable expenses in this case. It's just for you to realize that they are there and that they factor into your useable time.

Useable Time
I've mentioned this a couple of times now. How do you figure this one out? Simple. Think about using your financial budget, how would you figure out your disposable income?

Yep that's right. We'll take our available time (INCOME), in my case it's M-F 5pm - 10pm (bed time, I get up around 5am) less scheduled time (FIXED Expenses).

Well that is the simplest form, however I wouldn't want you to go and schedule all of that time - even the most productive businesses in the world don't run at 100% occupancy. In fact in my industry, contact ceters - which tend to be busy, we strive for @ 80% occupancy to avoid burnout but still be productive.

So now we take our remaining time and multiply it out by 80%. Another way to do this is to assume that 10 minutes of every hour (or part there of) remaining is not usable. This will help to account for interruptions and carryover.

(Available Time - Scheduled Time) * 80% = Useable Time
(INCOME - FIXED EXPENSES) * 80% = Disposable Income

So it doesn't work exactly, but think about the 20% not being used as your SAVINGS .

Folks, this is a work in progress and as my DW and I go through this we'll report back and let you know how we may have tweaked it a bit.

BTW: I use an Excel template to help calculate all this. So if y'all are interested I should be able to share. Either way I just wanted to share the idea, hope it helps to add calm to your daily lives.

 

[Pumba's Truth]

OH. Interesting to note. After all my Fixed Expenses are removed I have just under 24 hours of useable time.

When reviewing how I currently spend that time I found that I spend almost 12 hours of it watching television.

Me thinks that I might want to revisit how I spend this precious commodity.

 

[tinkarooni]

This is an interesting post. My family is also always struggling with the lack of time. I may use your ideas to spur some discussions with DH. I recently instituted once a month grocery shopping in a desperate attempt to gain more time. That is an experiment in progress.....we'll see. So far this week I would guess I saved at least one extra trip to the store. I have also had to change my attitude as well though, oops we're out of this, we'll use this as a substitute rather than always running back and forth to the store.

My second experiment lately is no tv at my house until 8:00 pm, and some days are entirely tv free. Working so far with such nice weather and no lack of things to do. We'll see how it goes when the snow flies.

 

[laurafergie]

That was an excellent post.

In my real life job, I spend a lot of time straightening out other people's mess. (On my way now, btw)

There should be some discussion about household organization. How much time do you waste looking for things, because they were not put away properly? Or how about that entire Saturday you spent cleaning out your closet because of everything not having a place so it all was just thrown in.

I look forward to seeing how this thread progresses.

 

[punkin]

Interesting thread.

 

[Pumba's Truth]

My second experiment lately is no tv at my house until 8:00 pm, and some days are entirely tv free. Working so far with such nice weather and no lack of things to do. We'll see how it goes when the snow flies.

I like both of the ideas - the one about shopping, however we eat a lot of fresh fruit and veggies. Well fruit anyways - Bananas, pineapple, strawberries (mind you these are frozen, but I go through a 6lb bag every couple of weeks). But the staples we are trying to ensure that we only buy once a month. COSTCO .. LOL.


As for the no TV until 8:00pm, it's funny my DW would probably want a rule that says no TV after 10:00pm. I tend to watch a couple of old re-run sitcoms before going to sleep. She doesn't much care for that .. LOL.

But both ideas can free up time and also help lead to a healthier life, both physically and financially by the sounds of it.

 

[Pumba's Truth]

That was an excellent post.

In my real life job, I spend a lot of time straightening out other people's mess. (On my way now, btw)

There should be some discussion about household organization. How much time do you waste looking for things, because they were not put away properly? Or how about that entire Saturday you spent cleaning out your closet because of everything not having a place so it all was just thrown in.

I look forward to seeing how this thread progresses.

Thanks for the cudos. I'm hoping it progresses as I think we all tend to have issues with the "Where did the time go?".

I like the idea about organizing, in fact my DW was looking into the profressional organizing business not too long ago. She does have a knack for that sort of stuff, we just need to get the time to do it. Then it will save time in the future.

Kind of funny eh? It takes time to save time. Sounds a lot like "It takes money to make money"

Great point though. Looking for stuff is un-productive time.

 

[robsmom]

I like the anology to budget. My economics professor always taught us that economics is the science of determining the utilization of scare resources. Time is one of the most limited resources that we have. I really want to do this, but I am a bit afraid to find out or see how i really spend the time. I guess that is really how many people feel about financial budgets. Also, I like the idea about productivity and not trying to account for everything, but I think your formula is not really what you meant to type. I don't think we want to only account for 80% of the fixed time because this then gives us that extra 20% as available time. I think you were trying to say that we really should plan to have only 80% of the available time as there is waste.

 

[Pumba's Truth]

I like the anology to budget. My economics professor always taught us that economics is the science of determining the utilization of scare resources. Time is one of the most limited resources that we have. I really want to do this, but I am a bit afraid to find out or see how i really spend the time. I guess that is really how many people feel about financial budgets. Also, I like the idea about productivity and not trying to account for everything, but I think your formula is not really what you meant to type. I don't think we want to only account for 80% of the fixed time because this then gives us that extra 20% as available time. I think you were trying to say that we really should plan to have only 80% of the available time as there is waste.

Hmm .. me and doing math too quickly .. DOH!

Thanks for the pick up I will ammend the formula to be as such.

(Available Time - Scheduled Time) * 80% = Useable Time

Hadn't thought of the Economics Approach, but makes sense. As for not wanting to see where time is spent, you're right about the comparison, people are scared to see where the money goes too. Trust me finding out that I spend over 45% of my useable time infront of the television was pretty darn scary.