The Price of Work

A few years ago, my husband and I decided to challenge ourselves to a $20-per-week limit. This $20 covers all that extra stuff: coffee, eating out, coffee, lattes and coffee. It was hard to keep up... and no, we don't stick to it 100% of the time, but we're real close, and we keep on getting closer. Oh, there were lots of attempts (on my part) to weasel out of the deal: this doesn't reeeeally need to cover lunch with friends, does it? It won't count on weekends together, ok? How about we just start next week because Stacey's birthday is coming up? Wait, we can't mean

In the end, creating the $20-a-week challenge was, ironically, a fun move... we have people over for dinner more often (grocery money), I bring my lunch everyday (healthier: priceless), I am making use of a once-unoccupied lunchroom (I am trying to start a movement we like to call, "Occupy Lunchroom"), and I plan ahead... a lot. It gets me looking at the facts (i.e. I hand over HOW MUCH to Starbucks every week?!?!).


The same attitude applies at work.

• Meetings: Bring Tim. You calculate the cost of your meetings by entering the number of people in the room and multiplying it by the average hourly salary. 
• Printing: depending on your printer/plan/amount of coloured ink/energy usage/etc. your print-out could be racking up a hefty monthly total. 

You have to make things real for people. It gives perspective.

Question of the day: how much does your leak cost?