A Philosophy On Saving Money

Bottom Line: Below I present one unique philosophy on saving that may help you rationalize saving more in the future.

Shopping around to save money on a big ticket item (car, house, etc.) is a no-brainer, but what about shopping around for low cost low volume items?

Of course, you could never shop and save tons of money. However, there's ultimately situations where you need or want something. Sometimes, I increase my motivation to shop for deals by monetizing the money saved in terms of a "net hourly wage." I don't do this all the time; however, here's an example:

a) Looking for the Stickney and Weil 11th Ed. Accounting text book, I go to amazon.com where the best price is $94 (new).
b) I then spend four minutes at one book shopping bot and find another brand new version of the book for $82.7 at half.com.
c) By spending the extra four minutes, I save $11.30.
d) Extrapolating this out to an equivalent hourly wage you get ($11.3*60minutes/4minutes): $169.50/hr wage

This equivalent hourly wage is a bit high. However, you get the picture. Perhaps this philosophy might help you save more over the long term.