You're there to make money, not to spend it

Don't let work become an accidental cost center.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that when you are at work, you are
there to make money, not spend it. Making sure that

(00:24):
work doesn't become an accidental cost center can help you
keep more of what you are working so hard to make.
Today's tip was inspired by Kristin of the Frugal Girl blog.
Kristin is in school to become a nurse, and over
the summer she worked at a nearby hospital. She packed

(00:44):
her lunches and snacks so she didn't have to buy
food from the cafeteria or the vending machines. She mentioned
hearing the saying from someone else that when you are
at work, you are there to make money, not spend it.
If you drink the free coffee rather than running to
a coffee shop, and you bring your lunch and snacks

(01:05):
rather than paying for what's on offer, you could likely
save ten dollars a day or more. Now, I will
admit that saving ten dollars a day on food or
coffee isn't necessarily a huge amount. That comes out to
about fifty dollars a week over a year, that is
twenty five hundred dollars, which, well something is probably not

(01:27):
going to make or break a lot of people listening
to this podcast. But on the other hand, since you
spend after tax money, not spending twenty five hundred dollars
mindlessly is like landing the equivalent of a three thousand
dollars raise, or at least something like that. If you
got a three percent raise on a one hundred thousand

(01:47):
dollars salary last year, that would be like doubling your raise.
That's what happens when you remind yourself that you are
at work to make money, not spend it. In any case,
while I don't like to sweat the lattes or other
small things, I do think repeating this phrase might be
helpful to some folks because I do know that it

(02:10):
is easy to let your job become an unintentional cost center. Yes,
we all need to look presentable, Yes we need to
get to work, and yes we often need to eat
during the course of an eight hour work day. But
soon we are buying pricey clothes because we need to
look a certain way, or maybe we need to drive

(02:31):
a certain car so we don't stand out in the
parking lot, vending machine food or sodas just add insult
on top of this, because not only can these items
be expensive, they are almost universally terrible. Kristen posted pictures
of her lunches on her blog, and they looked really good.
She'd bring cut up produce or salads or leftovers and

(02:54):
lovely little metal tins. It hardly looked like deprivation. Look
better than a vending machine, soda and a caddy bar.
Telling yourself, I'm here to make money, not to spend
it can be a reminder of the primary purpose of
a great many people's jobs. We all hope to love
our jobs, but most people wouldn't do their jobs for free.

(03:19):
Making money is a key benefit to this transaction. So
if that is the case, best not to let the
job become an unintentional cost center. If there is a
good reason for spending money, well so be it. A
planned lunch at a restaurant with your colleagues every Wednesday
is perfectly fine, and building relationships is probably worth the cash.

(03:45):
If that afternoon latte is the only thing that keeps
you from quitting your job, will be my guest. But
if we are talking spending money on a bag of
chips when you're hungry, rather than bringing a bag of
pretzels from home. Well, that's a different matter. The goal
of a job is to end up with a lot
more money than you started with, not to see big

(04:07):
chunks of your paycheck disappear into the experience of having
the job itself. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.

(04:29):
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,

(04:51):
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