If You Have Just One Free Hour a Day, You Can Kill Your Money Woes

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I never saw the movie Predator in its entirety. But I do remember this epiphany that the character Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) had when he discovered the blood of the movie’s super formidable villain on the ground.

If it bleeds, we can kill it.

Dutch didn’t say that killing ol’ crab face was going to be easy. He just pointed out to everyone, including the audience, that the blood they stumbled upon meant ol’ crab face wasn’t invincible. It had at least one vulnerability, and if Dutch and his team were skillful and lucky enough, they could exploit that one vulnerability and effect the demise of ol’ crab face.

I was reminded of the “if it bleeds” line because it personifies the power of hope. As long as you still have some fight in you, and your foe isn’t invincible, you have a chance. Think David against Goliath. Think a ragtag army of American colonists against the British Empire. Think a ragtag army of Vietnamese peasants against the American Empire. The race doesn’t always go to the swift, and the battle isn’t always won by the strong. 

So let’s take the “if it bleeds” line and give it a personal finance twist. Here’s my lame attempt.

If you have just one free hour a day, you can kill your money woes.

Now, just like Dutch, I’m not saying that killing your money woes is going to be easy. All I’m saying is that money woes, whether we’re talking about abject poverty or inveterate overspending, isn’t invincible. It has a number of known vulnerabilities, and if you can exploit just one of those vulnerabilities, you have a shot of turning your financial life around.

Let’s see how.

Tracking Your Time

Do you own at least one hour of your day? In other words, do you have at least one hour in your day that can be used for any purpose you desire?

In order to find out, you need to take stock of your typical day. Over the course of a week, write down what you do every day, and for each activity, make note of your degree of ownership. For instance, if you work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, you don’t own those 40 hours. Your boss owns them. You have to do what he or she wants during that time frame, not what you want.

For this exercise, I want you to use three degrees of ownership. Here they are.

Not owned

These are the hours you’re stuck doing the bidding of others. A job, as already explained, is a perfect example of this. Another good example of this is compulsory school. If you’re a minor between the ages of 5 and 18, you’re more than likely in school for six hours a day during the work week. This means the school system owns 30 hours of your life during the week. And let’s not forget any homework the school system assigns. If you do that homework, that’s more time that isn’t owned by you. So remember, whenever you’re forced, either by law or necessity, to do the bidding of others, the hours devoted to fulfilling those obligations aren’t owned by you.

Quick aside. As far as recuperate sleep goes, I think it belongs in the “not owned” category. My reasoning is that when you’re sleeping to recharge your batteries, you have no agency over your life. You can neither do anything constructive (e.g., read a book) nor do anything destructive (e.g., soak your liver in alcohol). I would, however, limit non-owned recuperate sleep to a max of eight hours a day. If you sleep ten hours in a day, for instance, I would categorized eight hours as “not owned” and two hours as “owned.” You were free to do what you wanted to do with those two hours, and you decided to use those two hours for additional sleep. 

Partially owned

These are the hours you’re stuck doing the bidding of others but have enough autonomy to do something you want to do. A good example of this is your rush-hour commute. You only deal with the slings and arrows of rush-hour traffic because your boss wants you to be at work during specific hours. You’re not doing it because you love getting the finger from every motorist who loathes your unflagging fidelity to the posted speed limit. But even though you’re in rush-hour traffic because of your boss, you can use that time to listen to a podcast or an audio book. You have enough freedom to do something constructive with your dreary commute. Whenever you’re doing the bidding of others, then, and have some control over what you’re doing during that time, those hours should be understood as being partially owned.

Owned

These are the hours in which you’re free to do whatever you want. You can binge watch The Walking Dead on Netflix, or you can do something constructive, such as reading a book, pursuing a side hustle, or learning a new skill.

A Case Study of Mr. Groovy’s Time Ownership

To give you an idea of how taking stock of your day is done, I did a time analysis of my typical workday (Monday through Friday) before I met Mrs. Groovy. That’s the time I was struggling financially. Here’s how I remember it.

Prior to meeting Mrs. Groovy, I completely owned 4.5 hours of every workday. On the weekends, I completely owned roughly 12.5 hours a day. Add up all those owned hours and I completely owned 47.5 hours out of the 168 hours in a week. That was lot of time that could have been devoted to killing my money woes.

The Known Vulnerabilities of Your Money Woes

Before I show you how to kill your money woes with your free time, I first need to impress upon you how weak your money woes truly are. Money woes have a number of known vulnerabilities, and any able-bodied adult, providing he or she isn’t mentally impaired, isn’t drug-addled, and isn’t locked in a jail cell, has the means to attack those vulnerabilities. Attack those vulnerabilities long enough, and your money woes will surely die.

Let’s now review the known vulnerabilities of your money woes.

Gainful Employment

Money woes batten on sloth. Money woes love people who lay around all day, addicted to such baleful time-wasters as television, recreational drugs, and video games. Money woes suffocate on gainful employment, though. If you want to kill your money woes, work more hours. 

Frugality

Money woes batten on extravagance. Money woes love people who buy more than they need or buy things to impress others. Money woes, on the other hand, suffocate on frugality. If you want to kill your money woes, learn how to enjoy life with less.

Coveted Skills

Money woes batten on ineptness. Money woes love people with no particular skills. Our country is teeming with such people, and every day more such people enter the country both legally and illegally. Since unskilled workers are a dime a dozen, the employers of such people have the upper hand. Hello, wage stagnation. Money woes, however, suffocate on focused competency. If you want to kill your money woes, become really competent at some skill or task that people will pay you handsomely to perform.

Humility

Money woes batten on ego. Money woes love people who have an inflated sense of entitlement; that is, they love people who think they deserve the finer things in life, regardless of their financial circumstances. Money woes suffocate on humility, though. If you want to kill your money woes, learn that it’s more important to be worthy of success than to have the appearance of success.

Discipline

Money woes batten on impulsiveness. Money woes love people who can’t control themselves, especially when it comes to procreation and spending. On the other hand, however, money woes suffocate on discipline. If you want to kill your money woes, master the art of delayed gratification.

Faith

Money woes batten on discouragement. Money woes love people who think “the system” is “rigged against them.” People who have embraced the victim mentality are more comfortable making excuses than taking constructive action to improve their lives. Money woes, however, suffocate on the notion that good actions will eventually be rewarded. If you want to kill your money woes, have faith in your ability to make your life better.

A Dismal Scenario

Okay, you did the time tracking exercise to see how many hours in the week you own, and you became familiar with the known vulnerabilities of yours and anyone else’s money woes. What the heck do you do now? Simply put, you use your free time to attack one or more of the known vulnerabilities. You either make more money or learn something that will improve your financial position (i.e., learn a coveted skill or learn how to be a better steward of your life and your money). Earn or learn or do both. It’s not hard.

Or is it? What if life has dealt you, because of a number of inherited broken financial windows, a pretty miserable hand? You’re of sound mind and body, and aren’t addicted to drugs or alcohol, but you’re an unwed mother with two kids and you work a combined 60 hours a week at two fast-food jobs. As a result, you have only one free hour a day. What the heck are you supposed to do with that feeble amount of owned time? Can you really kill your money woes with only one hour a day to attack it?

Brutal. This dismal scenario does leave your money woes with a seemingly unbeatable hand. I will say, though, that I became an SQL guru at my last job by studying SQL for a half hour every night. So there is hope.

Here is what I would suggest to you if you were an unwed mother who found yourself in such a lamentable position.

Focus On Your Biggest Money Woes First

The first thing you got to do is prioritize your money woes. Since you’re an unwed mother with two kids and no skills, you undoubtedly have a crapload of money woes. But not all of your money woes are equally severe or equally pressing. Identify your two biggest money woes, and then use your owned time to attack them as best you can. Here’s an example of what I mean.

From my perspective, your two biggest money woes are as follows:

1. Lack of money
2. Lack of time

You now use your one hour of owned time per day to attack them. Is that possible? Yes. Here’s how it can be done.

Become Mrs. McDonalds at Work

There’s nothing wrong with making a career out of fast food. Assistant managers make decent money and get decent benefits, and managers make good money and get good benefits. So if I were in your shoes, I would strive to join the ranks of the managerial class at both of the fast-food restaurants that employ you. One of them is bound to give you a shot.

How do you get your shot at management? Simple. You act like Mrs. McDonalds, Mrs. Taco Bell, or Mrs. Fill-In-The-Blank of whatever fast-food joint that employs you. In other words, you become a model employee. You get to work on time, you always have a sunny disposition, and you do your job extremely well. And never forget, while you don’t own your time at work, nothing’s stopping you from turning some of your non-owned hours into partially owned hours. Never forego an opportunity to learn another aspect of the fast-food business, and never forego an opportunity to show your manager that you want to move up. The simple act of ending your break five minutes early and using that time to clean the tables in the dining area will do more to advance your career than you can imagine.

Become Management Worthy with Your One Hour

If you want to be management material, you must become comfortable with numbers and you must develop a knack for managing people. So use your one free hour a day to improve these two skills.

On the numbers front, I would spend, assuming you have a computer and an internet connection, 15 to 20 minutes a day working through Khan Academy’s algebra course. Here’s the link to the Algebra 1 course. Create an account (it’s free) and watch at least one tutorial a day and work through the problems.

Khan Academy’s Algebra 1 Course

For the remaining 40 to 45 minutes of your hour, I would read management books geared toward small business. I googled the “best books on managing a small business,” and this is the first list I came across from a known journalistic concern.

• Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization
• No Jerks on the Job
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
• Strengths Finder 2.0
• Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement With the Principles of RESPECT
• Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
• Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters
• Awesomely Simple Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas Into Action
• Better Under Pressure: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Themselves and Others
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Are these books good? One is. I read Linchpin by Seth Godin and I can unequivocally say it’s well worth your time, whether you’re running a small business or not. As far as the others go, I have no idea. But I got to believe that spending time reading any one of them would be time better spent than watching some housewives-of-whatever stupidity on television.

So that’s the advice I’d give to an unwed mother who toils in the fast-food industry and only has one free hour a day. The goal would be to become an assistant manager at either of the two restaurants. One’s pay would increase, and one might be in a position to work 45 to 50 hours at one restaurant rather than 60 hours at two. Were that to happen, one would suddenly have more than one hour a day to devote to killing one’s money woes. A virtuous cycle would be placed in motion.

A Special Note to the “Oppressed”

Earn or learn or do both. I mentioned that directive earlier, and it’s my pithy way of telling you what you must do with your free time if you want to slay your money woes. Put your owned time to good use. If you’re not earning extra money, you’re learning how to be more frugal, more skilled, more humble, more disciplined, and more hopeful. 

Quick aside. Earning is pretty straight forward. You work more hours. But where do you begin on the learning side of the equation when there’s so many damn things to learn? My advice for any newbie out there who finally wants to tackle his or her money woes is to begin with three books. The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod will teach you how to master the habits conducive to financial advancement. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey will teach you the fundamentals of personal finance. And The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins will teach you the fundamentals of investing. Apply the teachings of these three books and you’ll be well on your way to killing your money woes.

Thankfully, few of us are struggling as badly as our hypothetical unwed mother above. Most of us who are struggling have money woes and time constraints that are far from catastrophic. Most of us who are struggling thus have enough free hours in the typical day to do a game-changing amount of earning and learning. And since no one is being forced at gunpoint to be a slacker—or be a party animal, or be a sports fanatic, or be a chronic over-spender, for that matter—and since public libraries and the internet make learning practically free, there’s really no excuse for being a financial mess.

But what if you don’t have “privilege” and are a member of a “oppressed” group? Will earning and learning even matter?

Yes, it most certainly would. America isn’t nearly as oppressive as academics and the mainstream media portray. And to prove it, I want to begin with a war story from my public service career. But before I do, I have another “quick aside.”

Quick aside. Be sure to read an important qualification at the end of this post for how the term “oppression” is being used here.

Okay, on to my war story.

When I was in the field working as a foreman of a highway crew, I had a crew member Mike (not his real name) who was in a pickle. For a variety of reasons I won’t get into here, he lost his license and was dependent on his brother-in-law for transportation to and from work (his brother-in-law worked for the same municipality as us, in the same department). Whenever he didn’t have his brother-in-law for a ride, which occurred fairly regularly because his brother-in-law was entitled to PTO, he would have to call in sick and lose a day’s pay. Now, I had a choice. I could do nothing and let Mike suffer the full ramifications of his past tomfoolery, or I could give Mike a break and become his chauffeur on the days his brother-in-law wasn’t available. Doing the latter would have exposed me to more than just a longer commute on several days out of the year. It would have put my company pickup truck at risk. As a foreman, I was allowed to bring my assigned pickup home. Gas for my commute was thus paid for by the taxpayers. But that sweet deal came with one steadfast rule. My pickup was to be used for work-related travel only. I could use my pickup for my commute and for performing my foreman duties in my assigned area during the workday. If I got caught using my pickup outside those parameters, however, I would forfeit the privilege of taking my pickup home. Mike lived no where near me or my assigned area. Picking him up or taking him home would mean violating the one steadfast rule of my “free” transportation perk. Well, I thought long and hard about this choice and said “fuck it.” I couldn’t let some troubled soul lose two to three thousand dollars of pay every year over nothing. Putting my “free” transportation at risk struck me as the right thing to do.

Quick aside. Mike was in my crew for two years and I never got caught helping him out when he needed a ride.

Now here’s the kicker. Mike is black. And even though he wasn’t a member of my tribe—I’m a white dude with blue eyes, for heaven’s sake—I willingly added an hour and a half to my commute for several days out of the year and put my “free” transportation at risk.

What I did for Mike is something I like to call a love legality–the opposite of a hate crime (love is the opposite of hate and a legality is the opposite of a crime). I did something to help a person who wasn’t a member of my tribe. Now a question. What do you suppose happens more routinely in America, hate crimes or love legalities? Since the vast majority of Americans are decent human beings, I got to believe that instances of love legalities far outnumber instances of hate crimes. In fact, I firmly believe that for every hate crime that occurs, there are a thousand love legalities.

Part of the reason why we aren’t cognizant of all the love legalities out there is because we haven’t been conditioned to look for them. We have a term for inter-tribal cruelty (i.e., hate crimes), but no term for inter-tribal benevolence. I had to coin the term “love legalities” just for this post. But once you’ve been woke to the notion of love legalities, you begin to see them everywhere. Here for example is another love legality I came across recently by watching our local public television station.

But wait. I got even better news for America’s “oppressed.” The same analysis applies to systemic racism or cruelty. For every example of systemic racism or cruelty, there are a thousand examples of systemic kindness. Here are just some examples of how our public and private institutions systematically endeavor to help the downtrodden and the historically abused.

• Medicaid
• Food Stamps
• Section 8 Housing
• Earned Income Tax Credits
• “Free” K-12 Education
• Subsidized Higher Education
• “Free” Libraries
• America has over one million public charities and over one hundred thousand foundations. In 2017, Americans donated over $400 billion to charity.
• Every Fortune 500 company has a diversity program to get more blacks, Hispanics, and women into high-profile positions.
• Every major college in the country gives bonus points to applicants with black skin or Hispanic heritage.
• Every major tech company in Silicon Valley gives bonus points to job applicants with female plumbing.

Again, we have a warped view of reality because we aren’t conditioned to view things such as Medicaid and Affirmative Action as systemic kindness. Just as there’s no equivalent to the Southern Poverty Law Center cataloging all the love legalities in this country, there’s no think tank, foundation, or university center heralding all the systemic kindness in this country. For whatever reason, there’s obviously more money to be made promoting the notion that America is a cauldron of hate and oppression rather than a citadel of love and kindness.

Look, I’m not saying there aren’t miserable lowlifes out there who do horrible things and target their victims based on some kind of ism. There are plenty of such miscreants. And all tribes—be they black or white, Christian or non-Christian, gay or straight, male or female, etc.—suffer from their barbarism. All I’m saying is that the sum total of all the pain exacted every day by everyday lowlifes is utterly dwarfed by the sum total of all the kindness exacted every day by everyday saints and everyday institutions. Translation: oppression is a myth. No one’s stopping anyone from using his or her owned time wisely. Every major institution in this country considers it part of its mission to actively help the downtrodden and historically abused. And, finally, Americans are suckers for a good redemption story. They love cheering and helping those who renounce self-sabotage and start living more honorably.

Wrapping It Up

Okay, groovy freedomist, I know I’ve thrown a lot at you in this post, and I certainly didn’t do it in the most cogent manner possible. So let me wrap this up by concisely stating the five main points of this post.

1. Everyone struggling financially owns a certain amount of his or her time.
2. Even if you have only one free hour a day, you have enough time to right your financial ship–or at least begin the process of righting your financial ship.
3. You right your financial ship by attacking the known vulnerabilities of money woes.
4. The best ways to attack these vulnerabilities are to earn or learn or do both. 
5. Most excuses for one’s money woes are bullshit. In other words, most people are in financial trouble because of their poor decisions or because of the broken financial windows they inherited from their families—not “the man,” not the “the system,” and not the dreaded “one percent.”

Final Thoughts

Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? I’m convinced that the overwhelming majority of people who are struggling financially in this country have the means to turn their financial lives around. And they don’t need any special help from the government. The government does enough already to help people. All the financially struggling have to do is take stock of their owned time and start putting that owned time to good use. Is this a valid position? Or am I being deluded by a bunch of alt-FI bullshit? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.

Important qualification on how the term “oppression” was used for this post. I believe on two important fronts that America is creeping ever so closely toward that nebulous boundary between freedom and tyranny.

The first front is taxation. You’re not free if you lose paycheck freedom. If the political majority has an unlimited right to tax you, and it exercises that right beyond a certain point, your spending decisions no longer reflect your values and priorities. They reflect the values and priorities of the political majority—your new master.

Our political majority right now does have an unlimited right to tax you and everyone else. But has it exercised that right beyond the point that renders paycheck freedom a joke? We’re close. But when you account for deficit spending and unfunded liabilities—two enormous examples of deferred taxes that will eventually have to be paid—we’re there.

The second front is regulation. You’re not free if you lose the right to compete in any legal endeavor for capricious reasons. I completely understand regulations geared toward safety and competency. It’s good that cars have to pass inspection every year to remain on the road and doctors have to pass a medical exam in order to practice medicine. But what about a recent regulation passed by the city of Mountain View that prohibits Facebook from providing it employees with free lunches? What does this regulation have to do with safety and competency?

The truth of the matter is that Mountain View passed it’s anti-free lunch regulation at the behest of the eateries that surround the Facebook campus. It had nothing to do with safety and competency and everything to do with protecting politically powerful eateries from competition. 

Sadly, Mountain View isn’t the only government that engages in competition-destroying regulations. Every government in the land partakes in it, from the humble New England township to the mighty federal government. In my book, The Groovy Guide to Financial Independence, I devote a chunk of the last chapter to the extent of competition-destroying regulations on the federal level. It ain’t pretty. If you’d like to read about the federal government’s threat to competition (and your paycheck), I’ve included a free download. Here it is.

Download Chapter Ten

I’m not saying oppression doesn’t exist and isn’t a concern. I’m saying that the oppression that does exist and is rapidly gaining steam, isn’t based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or any other accident of birth. The federal government, for example, doesn’t have one tax rate for white Americans and another tax rate for black Americans. The oppression that does exist and is rapidly gaining steam is based on money and organizational prowess. Those with money and an affinity for lobbying use that power to fleece the taxpayers and hobble their competition. Oppression today is really a story about the established using the government to beat up on the up-and-coming. Yet when most Americans think of oppression, they don’t think about paycheck-destroying taxation and competition-destroying regulation. They think of Jim Crow-like laws that say it’s perfectly legal to treat blacks, Hispanics, gays, and women like crap. And that’s the oppression that this post deals with. And since anti-minority Jim Crow-like laws don‘t exist, and since every major institution in this country is dedicated to diversity and inclusiveness, I’ve confidently come to the conclusion that oppression—as commonly understood—is a myth. No one is stopping any black child from studying algebra. Nor is anyone stopping anyone from the LGBT community from tracking his or her spending, opening a Roth IRA, starting an online business, or doing any financially responsible thing that the FI community advocates. The “oppressed” are truly free to improve their financial situations if they want.