Dealing with the #1 Issue in Making More Money

Want to know the #1 objection I get when I suggest people work to make some extra money? Time. They claim they simply don't have to time to work on something else.

Then I see reports like this:

Nielsen Media Research said Monday the average American watches 142 hours of TV in a month. Last season the typical home had a television on for eight hours and 18 minutes each day. That's up an hour per day from just 10 years ago.

Ok, I'm missing something. "142 hours a month" and "eight hours each day" don't add up. Wouldn't 142 hours equal four plus hours a day and wouldn't eight hours a day equal 240 hours a month? Maybe the difference is that the 142 hours is actually watching TV while the eight hours per day is the total time the TV is on (which means the TV is on roughly four hours per day with no one watching it.)

Anyway, the conclusion is still the same regardless of which number is accurate: there's a lot of time being spent on watching TV -- time that could be spent earning extra money.

Now I know that:

• People need entertainment. Certainly some daily allotment of entertainment is acceptable and, probably, good for people.
• Life isn't all about earning more money.
• The "averages" are not everyone. The average guy may be watching TV until his eye fall out, but many others work 12+ hours a day and don't watch at all.

That said, I still hear quite often that "I don't have time" when I suggest ways that people can earn extra money. And in many cases, these are people who have written me asking for help earning more.

So I'm suggesting one place where people can find some extra time -- turn off the TV.

Comments

[Nick]

Both numbers are accurate. The 142 hours applies to individuals, while the 8 hours per day applies to households (which often contain more than one individual).

"All people are equally good at time management, but some people are more willing than others to admit that they are doing what they want to do, while others maintain the illusion they wish they were doing something else."

-Tyler Cowen

[Frank]

FMF -

142 hours (4.7hrs/day) = Average American

249 hours (8.3hrs/day) = Typical HOUSEHOLD/HOME

There is some overlap in those numbers, and both may be accurate without any conflict.

[Nick]

Good timing Frank.

[Frank]

Weird... 2 hours after his post and we both decided to point that out at the same time.

Hah... kudos.

[Choyster Cash]

Another problem is that many Americans can feel high and mighty about not watching 4.7 hours a day of television but they still surf the internet and spend time reading blogs for just as much time!

[Choyster Cash]

How much of this time is not "active watching" I wonder.

[Neural forex]

I agree with Choyster Cash about many Americans surfing the internet.

[Bill]

Triple bonus: sell the TV, generate cash; cancel cable save cash...no TV watching save tons of vegetative time. Now if I can just get the wife to agree to no TV.

[dogatemyfinances]

Television on does not equal watching.

Reading is fundamental.

[Angie]

The reason I do not seek more income is because its hard to get a part time job that is anywhere near your salaried hourly wage in order to justify your lost time. I would gladly work 10-20 hours on a part time job to speed up my savings. But assuming the typical maximum would be working part time for $12 an hour. After taxes that's a mere $7 an hour.

[Todd @ Prosperity Junky]

I would agree. It is one thing to say you want to make more money. But more importantly, you need to consider if your actions consistent with that statement? You will never get a guarantee that earning more money is going to be easy. There may be things (TV being one) in your life that you will need to sacrifice to make that happen. It often requires taken an honest look at what you are doing daily to accomplish that. We often here about success stories and they tend to make things sound easy. What we don't realize is all of the sacrifice and preparation that made the success possible.

[Todd @ Prosperity Junky]

Wow, that was brutal. I will spell and grammer check next time. :)

[Miss M]

My TV is on most of the day and I'm not even home to watch it! I need a statistic on how many hours a day the average dog spends watching TV. I leave it on for the doggies when we're gone, I think it comforts them. I watch maybe an hour a day, time online, well that's another story.

[Nicki]

It's easy to get sucked into 'vegging out' and watching tv. In our home we recently declared Tuesday and Wednesday as "No TV Days." We don't watch much on the weekends. Amazing the time it frees up. Good point.

[Tim]

yeah, it's funny how the days haven't suddenly shrunk less than 24 hours. my father worked three jobs when he and mom were starting out. he worked two jobs when we were growing up.

[plonkee]

If I had £1 for every time someone suggested I do something instead of or at the same time as watching tv...

Apparently I could add an additional income, practice my oboe, learn to make oboe reeds, get another qualification, and learn a language. Problem is, of course, that you can only do so much. I actually do some of those things as well as or instead of watching tv and now all my time is taken up. I get that a lot of time is spent by a lot of people in idle leisure, I just wish people wouldn't assume that my time was spent in idle leisure.

[Tarah]

My husband got a second job right after our first child was born, and it actually cost us more than with him only having one job (extra gas, extra packed lunch, etc.). Moonlighting, on the other hand, is much more lucrative. He's a mechanic and if he works out of his garage one day a week, he makes more that day than a whole month of a second, part-time job. I guess it's also about using your skills efficiently.