The Money Problem

What is the purpose of life?

Ok, this post isn’t actually about that question, but I want you to keep it in mind as you read. Consider a less deep question: what do you want to do with your life?

I’m going to start off by assuming that people have things like passions, goals, objectives, and drives. With that assumption, I’d like to start talking about The Money Problem.

The Money Problem is that you don’t have time to pursue these passions because you have to spend an obnoxious portion of your life making money.

• There are 24 hours in a day.
• Let’s say that you sleep for 8 hours a day. Boom — one third of your day is gone.
• Let’s say that you work for 8 hours a day. CHOMP — half of your waking hours have been eaten up.

Then you have to account for all the little things that add up. The Downloading the Task type things.

• Eating: 2 hours. You have to eat. My brain just can’t acknowledge how much time you need to allocate for eating. Let’s say you’re a fast eater and take take 20 minutes to eat 3 meals a day. That’s an hour. But you then have to consider the time it takes to cook, and clean up. Let’s say that this takes an hour a day (it often takes me more).
• Falling asleep/getting out of bed: 30 minutes. I think this is conservative. If often takes me a lot longer to fall asleep (I know this isn’t good).
• Commuting: 30 minutes. Again, I’m being conservative — a lot of people spend a lot more time doing this.
• Hygiene: 30 minutes. 10–15 to shower; 15–20 to brush your teeth and stuff.
• Exercise: 1 hour. I consider exercise a necessity.
• Chores: ? So far we have 3.5 hours left in the day, and we haven’t even accounted for chores or the fact that this probably underestimates a lot. You have to go shopping, pay bills, manage your money, clean, etc.
• Socializing, personal time… we also haven’t accounted for the fact that people need time to socialize, and that they also need down time for themselves to relax.

Every day I feel bad that I didn’t get enough done. I think:

I had 24 hours… and this is all I did today?

I get the impression that I’m not alone in having this thought. In reality, we don’t actually have that much time in a day though.

• The stuff in my second set of bullet points I view as largely fixed. Until they invent teleporting, 20 second showers, Soylent and stuff like that, we sorta have to spend the time on these things.
• I also view the fact that we need (at least!) 8 hours of sleep as fixed. Maybe one day science will change this and lengthen our lifespans by 33%.
• So that leaves “work 8 hours a day” as the only thing that I see as variable.

Let’s revisit those passions that you have. The things you want to do with your life. It seems to me that people only have — at best — 3 or 4 hours a day to work towards these things. In reality, it’s probably much less.

I see this as a huge problem, and as something that is truly unacceptable. I refuse to spend my life like that. I want to make a dent on the world.

How can you do this? By solving The Money Problem. I see two angles that it can be attacked:

1. Reduce your burn rate (how much money you use).
2. Make more money.

Burn Rate

Fortunately for you, you live in a very incredible point in time. Our collective economy has made massive progress, and you live at a time where you could get a lot of cool things for a relatively low price. Refrigeration, transportation, communication, temperature control, nutritious food, education, internet… these are all things that used to be considered luxuries and are now considered basic necessities. Take a moment to question whether these are really necessities, and to reflect on how good we have it.

Also, you’ll be happy to know that money doesn’t really have an effect on your happiness!

You may think it does, but it almost certainly doesn’t. What really leads to happiness are genetics, good relationships, and a sense of purpose.

So then, it’s probably a good idea for you to reduce your burn rate and work towards saving up enough money so you could quit your job and work towards your true passion and chase that sense of purpose. Mr. Money Mustache talks about this a lot.

Making More Money

If your goal is to save up enough money to quit and pursue your purpose, making a lot of money will allow you to reach that goal more quickly. Some options:

• Get a really high paying job, like being a quant.
• Get a normal high paying job, like being a software developer.
• Start a startup.

This post isn’t about how to make a lot of money. I’m just pointing out that there are clearly more strategic ways to make a lot of money.

Do You Have Passion?

This logic I’ve been using only really applies if you truly have passion. The Money Problem is only a problem if you have real things that you’re working towards in life that are big enough to require a real time commitment.

Otherwise, The Money Problem isn’t really a problem, and you could live a normal life of waking up, going to work, coming home, exercising, eating, watching tv… going out drinking on weekends… eventually getting married and starting a family… and eventually retiring at 65.

The overwhelming majority of people live their life this way. Is this because it’s genuinely what they want? Or is it because they see The Money Problem as too intimidating to even consider pursuing their passion? I get the impression that it’s the latter, and I see that as a problem.