Today's Lesson From The Craft Room: Time Is The New Currency
Every once in awhile I channel surf on the television and come upon a show or a scene that makes me stop and think. That happened the other day when I landed upon a show about people who take couponing to the extreme. They collect newspapers - maybe even go diving into garbages for them - and then spend hour upon hour upon hour categorizing their coupons and planning their shopping trips. Then they go on these crazy shopping trips where they buy tons of grocery items at the supermarket and save a ton of money. I was struck by one of the husbands who was commenting that this was going to be his wife's last shopping trip for awhile since she had been eating, sleeping, and breathing coupons and coupon cutting and had little time for anything else. And that's what made me stop and think. What we see on the show is the cash register total going up and up and up as these individuals shop and then watch as the total begins to go lower and lower as the coupons get redeemed. The impression we are left with is that these individuals are saving a ton of money...and maybe they are. What we don't see and what I really question is what is that savings worth? Aside from the fact that it seems these shopping trips involve buying items that I can't image will ever get used (take for example the 30 boxes of artificial sweetener packets), what I am really struck by is what people are willing to trade the precious minutes of their life for. And it makes me question that about myself as well. How much is saving $500 at the grocery store worth to you? The week or more that it will take to cut coupons and sort them and shop? If that takes you 40 hours, does that mean you are willing to trade an hour of your life for $12.50 in savings? Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. What seems important is that we focus not just on what we appear to be saving, but also on what we are sacrificing to do it. I would gladly trade the $12.50 of savings for an extra hour of walking with Buddy out in nature. That to me is worth trading the currency of time for. I guess for each of us, what we are willing to "sell" our time for will differ. As we come upon 2012, I wish that we all will consider what our time is really worth and what we are willing to "sell" our time for. My hope is that we think of our time as the new currency - the new wealth - and that we use it well.Today's project is a calendar that I have made in the past - at least the "body" of the calendar is the same. The pages are 4 3/4" by 4 3/4" and fit perfectly into a CD jewel case that can be placed on your desktop. The twist is that I wanted to try to decorate the entire calendar using just one stamp set, Every Little Bit. I succeeded but for one month where I incorporated a few letters from the Calendar Alphabet & Numbers stamp set. Here are photos of each of the months...I hope you enjoy them!!!!
1 comment:
Your calendar(s) are so cute. Did you print up the months/dates too? My MIL used to sit with three store flyers and go through the "sales" of the week and I could never see the point in visiting three different grocery stores to save the small amount of money that she did because, as you say, her time was worth a lot more than her savings. She, however, was happier than a monkey with a banana to have saved 10 cents a pound on this or that even though she probably spent that in just gas alone!
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