Value of Time and Money

My daughter came home recently and asked whether she could join a music lesson, which costs £49 a month. I’ve seen it before and I was ready to say no, but she added that the lesson was done during class and her friend(s?) who joined it had to skip class. I was horrified!

She calmed me down that her friend who joined it simply came back to class after the lesson and played catch up to finish all the work given by the teacher. She argued that it can be done and her friend did so. I then prepared to give my declination.

I argued that skipping class for music lessons is putting more value on entertainment (or the learning of it) compared to education, which I think is a wrong value to have. Plus the cost of it being so high, almost the cost of a month’s school lunch, also shows the music lesson is valued higher than basic needs. Now I know some people might disagree, because people have different values, but my daughter came around after I explained these to her.

I credit this way of thinking to Ramit Sethi with his idea of Rich Life, which I find very useful in determining things to do, with money, and also non-money stuff. Even us adults have problems in determining what to do with our time, so it always helps when we try to decide what to do.

Only sometimes, it is not too easy to decide and we got distracted easily. That distraction can be one of the excuses that why I don’t update this blog much. Now that I have my values decided, I’ll continue updating it soon.

Thanks for reading.