Money for Time
It is often said that time is money. I'm not sure if that's quite as true in some other cultures that are more relaxed about timeliness and schedules than we are here in the United States, but it is absolutely true here.
When you don't have much money, you spend time to save money. My personal example is that when I was living in Coventry in Cleveland Heights in 2004-2006, the radio station was about a thirty minute walk away from my apartment. This was before I had a bike, so most of the time, I drove down to the station. However, sometimes events were scheduled near the radio station that were very likely to eat up all the available free parking, such as graduation or Parade the Circle. Back then I didn't have a ton of money, so on those days, instead of paying the relatively expensive amount charged for parking in the nearby garage, I would spend my thirty minutes to walk down to the radio station and then thirty minutes back, thereby exchanging time for money.
When you have money, you spend money to save time. With Birdie, our biggest "time for money" expenditure is on formula. Instead of buying powdered formula that you have to prepare ahead of time by boiling water and mixing, we have just been buying liquid formula. We buy six packs of the big 32oz bottles for most of her meals. Those need to be refrigerated after opening, so we also buy 12 packs of the little 2oz bottles, which we keep upstairs in Birdie's room so that we don't have to run downstairs to the fridge in the middle of the night when we're half asleep. Well, really I should say so M doesn't have to run downstairs at night, since for the last several months she has handle most of the late night / early morning efforts due to my uncanny ability to sleep through pretty much any noise you care to aim at me.
The powdered formula is much cheaper, and our pediatrician tends to give us another package every time we visit, but it's more work and we can afford it, so we spend money for time. M actually gave most of our accumulated powdered formula on a local Buy Nothing group. Admittedly, we also use the little bottles to have on hand in the car should Birdie unexpectedly get hungry at the park, so having them isn't just a time saving expenditure, but that was the original impetus.
On a tangential note, breast feeding is often perceived to be free, but that's only true if you assume that the mother's time has no value, which is a ridiculous stance to take. There's no such thing as a free lunch, not even for babies.
When you don't have much money, you spend time to save money. My personal example is that when I was living in Coventry in Cleveland Heights in 2004-2006, the radio station was about a thirty minute walk away from my apartment. This was before I had a bike, so most of the time, I drove down to the station. However, sometimes events were scheduled near the radio station that were very likely to eat up all the available free parking, such as graduation or Parade the Circle. Back then I didn't have a ton of money, so on those days, instead of paying the relatively expensive amount charged for parking in the nearby garage, I would spend my thirty minutes to walk down to the radio station and then thirty minutes back, thereby exchanging time for money.
When you have money, you spend money to save time. With Birdie, our biggest "time for money" expenditure is on formula. Instead of buying powdered formula that you have to prepare ahead of time by boiling water and mixing, we have just been buying liquid formula. We buy six packs of the big 32oz bottles for most of her meals. Those need to be refrigerated after opening, so we also buy 12 packs of the little 2oz bottles, which we keep upstairs in Birdie's room so that we don't have to run downstairs to the fridge in the middle of the night when we're half asleep. Well, really I should say so M doesn't have to run downstairs at night, since for the last several months she has handle most of the late night / early morning efforts due to my uncanny ability to sleep through pretty much any noise you care to aim at me.
The powdered formula is much cheaper, and our pediatrician tends to give us another package every time we visit, but it's more work and we can afford it, so we spend money for time. M actually gave most of our accumulated powdered formula on a local Buy Nothing group. Admittedly, we also use the little bottles to have on hand in the car should Birdie unexpectedly get hungry at the park, so having them isn't just a time saving expenditure, but that was the original impetus.
On a tangential note, breast feeding is often perceived to be free, but that's only true if you assume that the mother's time has no value, which is a ridiculous stance to take. There's no such thing as a free lunch, not even for babies.