Tough Decision: Time or Money?

Recently my husband retired, and his monthly pension is about ¼ of what he used to bring home.  He’s not yet old enough to be eligible for social security, so I decided to boost our income by taking on a side hustle or two.  He didn’t like that because now I don’t have much time to spend with him.  It seems like he wanted me to semi-retire with him while still bringing home a paycheck from my 9-5 job.  In fact, he asked me to learn bridge, which I didn’t want to do, but he became so uncooperative, that I succumbed, and now that’s one more thing I need to add to my busy schedule.

Even though the stock market is crashing and our retirement savings is taking a big hit, he still thinks that my extra work is unnecessary.  But I have concerns that if we drain our savings, we will be too old to work 20-30 years from now to bring in extra income.  So I think working on the front end is the best plan.  That way we don’t have to touch our savings until it’s absolutely necessary.

Would I like to have more time to do things other than work?  Of course.  The real question is whether we can afford it.  Of course we could try to spend less money, but that’s a bit of a challenge with grocery prices being so high.  And we don’t spend money on much else.  We don’t really buy clothes and only eat out on special occasions when we normally split a meal.

My daughters seem to be better than me at prioritizing their “me” time.  For example, I just spend pretty much all the time I had on a women’s writer’s retreat this weekend working on lesson plans for classes I’m teaching.  And it wasn’t even a super interesting lesson.  It’s on citations for research papers (necessary, but boring for both myself and the students).

Sometimes I wish I was better at working less and goofing off more.  But then I remember how many times my kids have been stressed because they don’t have enough money.  You see, very few of life’s problems can’t be solved with enough money.

My husband is under the impression that I enjoy working all the time.  I think a more true statement would be that I don’t like to be bored, so I stay busy.  And it just seems like my time might be more worthwhile if I get paid for what I’m doing.

Anyway, I find myself at a crossroads about whether to continue teaching, since I’ve done a lot of the preliminary work.  Or maybe I should trust what my husband says about us having enough money even if I’m only working one job.  It’s just that I want to travel (next year to Switzerland, hopefully), and I know that it takes some money to do that.  Plus, my son’s college tuition needs to be paid for another year.

I’m inclined to keep working, only to just find ways to do only the minimum (what’s absolutely necessary) to do an okay job.  I’ve already managed to find a way on my full time job to disconnect enough so that I don’t care when my coworkers tell me all the things that need to be rewritten.

I realize that more important than any job is time with my family and friends, so I’m making sure to prioritize that over work whenever possible.  Of course when it’s time to teach class, I have to be there, but maybe I can figure out a way to minimize how much time I spend grading papers.

It will be interesting to see whether the college offers me more classes to teach in the future, and if so, what I will say.  Also, I have to determine how much effort I want to make toward recruiting families to host foreign exchange students.  Frankly I’m amazed at this point in our country’s history that kids from other countries still would want to come to study in the United States.

Anyway, as I trudge along, I’m managing to keep all the balls in the air as I juggle all my commitments.  So even thought I’m tired quite often, I’m managing better than I used to because I know that everything always works out for the best.

Joke: If time is money, does that mean the ATM is a time machine? — from https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/9pj989/if_time_is_money/ 

Quote:  "Time is more valuable than money.  You can get more money, but you cannot get more time" — Jim Rohn

Advice:  Try to find a balance between having time and making money.  You need both in life.