What’s Taking So Long?

Sometimes my generation really amazes me with their sense of entitlement. I know most of us grew up in the ‘Me’ decade, but I really want to slap people sometimes.

Case in point: My buddy was doing the usual woe-is-me, ‘I am so horribly busy I don’t have time to cook and must get take-out, why am I getting so fat” whine. I know she only works 8 hours a day (gov’t worker) and her commute is 30 minutes each way, after subtracting another 8 hours for sleep, that leaves her with seven hours of free time (not to mention the weekends).

So I asked her what the hell she was doing with all her free time, and she came up with a laundry list of luxuries like gym time, checking her e-mail/facebook/whatever, tv time, volunteering, spending time with her kinda-boyfriend-but-not-really, and socializing with the girls, apparently completely unaware that those were wants and not needs. Of course she insisted those were all necessities,  so I asked her if she had time in the morning to do prep work (chopping and such) so all she has to do when she comes home is literally cook the food.

No, it took her two hours to get ready in the morning. What the hell are people doing in the morning that takes that long? The answer is usually hair/makeup and staring at the computer monitor, but once again, no one seems to recognize that being able to take that much time in the morning is a luxury, and one you can serious cut down on.

Seriously, let’s see:

• < 10 for shower
• 5 minutes to towel dry hair/brush teeth/pee
• 5 minutes for bowl of cereal
• 5 minutes to dress
• 5 minutes for makeup
• 10 minutes to dry hair
• 5 minutes to find keys/check purse/decide to change shoes.

That’s what, 45 minutes? Hell, even with 15 minutes added for obsessively checking your inbox, it’s still only an hour. Yes, it’s possible to do hair and makeup in 15 minutes, it just requires people to recognize that having a complex style is a luxury, and not one everyone can afford. And notice that spending 30 minutes reading the blog-o-sphere is not on there. I’m not knocking you if you are high maintenance or are internet addicted, but please recognize that these are luxuries.

Anyway, back to Whiny McWhineyPerson. I could not convince her that she had plenty of time to cook if she would just make a few adjustments, like only checking her e-mail once a day, cooking with kinda-sorta-not-really boyfriend instead of always going horizontal, or spending one night a week at home to cook and freeze meals.  I may have convinced her that at least buying SmartChoice dinners was cheaper and possibly better for her than Sweet and Sour Pork every night.

I also may have convinced her to stop talking to me because I’m some sort of crazed-housewife, money-obsessed, hard-ass, but at least I won’t have to listen to her crying about her life and then not doing a damn thing to make it better. I swear the more time I spend in the personal finance sphere, the less patience I have for people digging themselves into a financial hole and then bitching about it. Sacrifices must be made, so suck it up.

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