We heard it all the time: Time is money, but is it? Professor Hamermesh, argues that as we become wealthier, we have more money, but we don’t have more time, so money plentiful while time is not, which means that time is a lot more valuable than money.

If we compare our income with the income of our grandparents, we are earning about 3 times as much, but don’t have 3 times as many hours.

According to Professor Daniel S. Hamermesh, rich people would be a lot more stressed about how they spend their time that not rich people. The reason is that they have so many options that it becomes stressful to make a decision.

The average person spends their time doing three major things.

1. Sleeping
2. Working for pay
3. Watching TV

Some ways in which rich people spend their time

• They watch less TV
• The sleepless
• They work more
• They spend their money and time in experiences, many of those experiences are expensive.

Men watch more tv than women 2.5 to 3 hours more. In the US men watch about 19 hours of TV per week while women watch about 16 hours.

Men and women work approximately the same amount of hours. The only difference is that men work more hours for pay, while women do more work around the house which is unpaid labor.

Other books written by Professor Daniel S. Hamermesh:

1. Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful
2. Labor Demand by Daniel S. Hamermesh (1996-01-28)
3. Economics is Everywhere by Daniel S. Hamermesh (2011-09-02)

According to the book Beauty Pays, in Canada, the top 30% of beautiful people earn 6 to 9% more than the bottom 10% of beautiful people.

My own comments and life experience

If we take a second to reflect on the information we got,  we notice that rich people do things a little bit differently, they work more hours and they watched less TV.

If you want to improve your financial situation, I suggest the same, work a little bit longer and watch less TV. In fact, if you want to drastically improve your life in many ways, I suggest getting rid of your TV altogether.

Can you imagine what you could do with an extra 19 hours per week if you are a man or an extra 16 hour per week if you are a woman? You could work more, you could read or learn more, you could do more exercise, and you could build more face-to-face relationships. Your diet will probably improve as well because you will not be eating junk food while watching TV. And you are less affected by TV advertisers, or political discourse.

This reminds me. When I moved to Canada, about 20 years ago, my mother came to visit me. She was dismayed and horrified when she noticed that I didn’t have a TV. She thought that I was going through some financial time (which I was because I was a student). So she decides to surprise me and she bought me a big TV. Now it was my turn to be horrified, to have a TV in my apartment.

Finally, my mother left back to her country.

At that time I had a friend/neighbor who was a waitress, and she was allowed to take food with her, from the Indian restaurant where she used to work. I made a deal with her. She could take my new TV, in exchange for $300 of food from her restaurant. She took the deal.

When my mother called me and asked if I was enjoying the TV, to told her that I eat the TV.

If we want to improve our financial life, we could watch a bit less tv and work or study more.

How do you spend your time? Do you have a TV? Would you consider throwing it away?

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