Time, just like money, is a resource that must be managed properly. Time is the great equalizer. While there is no limit to the amount of money you can amass, there is a limit to the amount of time we have. We each have the same 24 hours each day, yet why do some people accomplish more?

When you start plugging the holes in your budget, you start to see the holes in your day.”Oh, I’ll just run to the store and pick it up,” turns into “I didn’t realize it takes 40 minutes just to buy a stick of butter!”

Getting In to a Scrum

One way I plug the leaks in my schedule is to employ the principle of “barely sufficient.” It’s a term I came to know while spending time with some software developers using Scrum at their workplace.

The idea behind “barely sufficient” is to do enough to be effective without compromising the end result. It is not permission to slack off and turn in a sub-standard performance. Adolescence may be a little early to introduce this concept to your children.

• It takes longer to use a label maker than it does to hand-write one neatly. The printed label is prettier, but the hand-written one performs the intended function adequately.
• Have you ever tried to design, print, and apply an adhesive label to a CD-R or DVD-R? Isn’t it a royal pain? Those blank CDs and DVDs you can print on directly do a little better. However, they often run on proprietary software that is difficult to use. For presentation purposes, it’s perfectly OK to go the extra mile. But for your own archiving and backup, a water-based marker made for writing on CDs is fine. (You do not want to use a solvent-based permanent marker. This will corrupt the data on the disc).

Some tasks do need to be performed with a degree of precision while other do not.  All process improvements eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. It takes experience to determine what that point is.

Recurring Tasks

“Barely sufficient” can also apply to the frequency of a recurring task:

• Do you really need to wash your car every week or is every-other-week OK?
• I maintain a closely cropped buzz cut instead of shaving my head. I can maintain the buzz cut by clipping my hair every other week while a slick chrome dome takes almost daily attention. A buzz cut is the least expensive hairdo to maintain in terms of time and money.

You can think of “barely sufficient” as the trade-off between speed and accuracy. You can also think of it as being frugal with your time. Just as you find where to trim the budget, you can find where to trim the time it takes to perform tasks. Save your “going the extra mile” efforts for those times when it’s truly necessary. Do baseball players sprint to first base after getting walked? “Barely sufficient” tactics will still accomplish your overall strategy.

What “barely sufficient” methods do you employ?

There is a lot of talk about saving money when grocery shopping right now. But what about saving time? “Grocery shopping” appears as a single line item on your big-picture to-do list. However, it’s made up of several steps. Nothing in life should ever take more than 2-3 minutes. The issue is, we have 4-500 things to do each day that all take 2-3 minutes. Before you know it, it’s 8:00 and you just started boiling water for the pasta.

It’s going to take about 300 words worth of rambling before this little nugget of wisdom is revealed. Don’t be such a lazy ADD’ed-out blog reader! Stick with me. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.

Let’s take a detailed look at this single line item:

1. Take inventory of your pantry and your refrigerator.
2. Plan some meals for the week and make your list.
3. Collect all the plastic bags you’re going to drop off in the recycling bin at the store. You have all these plastic bags because you always forget to bring the reusable bags.
4. Get in your car and drive to the store.
5. Turn around and go back home. You’re not going to forget those reusable bags again!
6. Sit in your car for 3 minutes. Someone is blocking traffic in the parking lot waiting for a parking space 10 feet closer to the store.
7. Find a parking spot close to the cart return area.
8. Do your shopping.
9. Check out.
10. Load up the car.
11. Drive home.
12. Unload the car.
13. Put groceries away.

Whew! Even on my most caffeinated days, it can take up to 3 hours. Shopping during off-peak hours will shave some more time. So will making a list, and planning a week’s worth of meals. If you’re stopping at the store on your way home from work, pre-planning is critical. This is also one of those times when it’s definitely OK to “outsource” some food. You’ll spend more money on unnecessary impulse purchases than you would on a quick snack. Without hunger to worry about, you’ll also perform the task of shopping much faster and with more clarity of purpose.

Organization is The Key

I went through the trouble of mapping one of the two main Publix locations that I shop at. I thought I would make my list according to the sequence of the aisles. How many people actually do that. I know I don’t.

Organizing your pantry and your refrigerator starts at the checkout line. That’s right. You can start organizing while in the checkout line. I load the items on the conveyor belt in the following order:

• Frozen items
• Refrigerated items
• Perishable items
• Non-perishables
• Non-food items

Each main group is also organized further. All like items go together. The items end up getting bagged together. You can put them away much more efficiently.

The benefit of leaving non-food items for last will help you when analyzing what you really buy. In order to create an effective budget, you have to know how much money you’re actually spending on food. Having those non-food items at the end of the receipt makes this accounting much easier.

The beautiful thing about this little trick is that it doesn’t take any additional time or effort to implement. You’re performing one of the necessary steps in the grocery shopping process, but you’re doing it with a little forethought. This advance thinking saves you time at subsequent steps.

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Photo: SocialTechnologies.com

“Crunchy on the Inside With a Soft Suburban Outer Coating” started its life as a lengthy and thoughtfully written article. I decided to split it up into smaller chunks over several weeks. The first installment came out on Earth Day. The mid-section of this article series has expanded due to the timing of events.

Maybe you employ every gas-saving tip out there, but there is more money to squeeze from other areas in our lives without suffering for it. Some tactics even improve the quality of life.

Finally Filling Up Again

The insidious “E” light came on today as I was driving home from work. I know this doesn’t mean “Get gas now or be stranded on the roadside!” but it always imparts a sense of urgency. Besides, I spotted a screaming bargain at $3.73/gallon (15 years ago in Europe or Japan, dozens of cars would be lined up at that gas station).

I made it 27 days between fill-ups. I paid $6 more at the pump this time.

The Real Cost of Gas

Gas prices are an easy target. The per-unit cost has gone up significantly, but what impact does it really have on our budgets? Let’s examine a hypothetical (and realistic) scenario here:

The Almost-Good Old Days

• $3.00/gallon
• 25 mile round-trip commute.
• 25 MPG

Today

• $3.73/gallon
• 25 mile round-trip commute.
• 25 MPG

To keep this simple, we’re isolating the cost of commuting to work. I’m Asian and I got bad grades in math all through school. Let’s keep this simple, OK? Based on the assumptions outlined above, we have a fuel cost of $15/week in the past. At the higher price, we have a weekly fuel cost of $18.65. We’re talking about $3.65. Can you find $3.65 worth of fat in your weekly expenditures? Yes, the percentage of increase is gruesome, but what is our total expenditure increase over the medium and long term? Oh, and BTW, you can trust these figures. I’m not that bad at math.

Think Outside the Pump

I’m not making light of the budget stretching that’s going on. I also recognize that many people have longer commutes or less fuel-efficient vehicles than the scenario outlined above.

I get my share of “woe-is-me.” There’s a teenager living here. If a solution to your problem is within reach, the last thing I want to hear is whining. Enlist your creativity (or mine) and find the money you’re throwing away.

• Chances are, in a 2-car household, one car gets used more. Drive the one that gets better mileage more.
• One can of soda per day represents $10/month. Drink water instead.
• Attention smokers. Cut out 3 cigarettes a day and there’s your $15/month.
• Do I really have to talk about the oft-vilified Starbucks Latte again? Dunkin’ Donuts coffee costs less and tastes better.
• Visit my buddies Frugal Dad and Mike.
• Ride your bike instead of driving.
• Take the bus.
• Buy stuff on Amazon instead of driving to the mall.
• Stay home and read my blog.

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You pay your bills online anyway.

Save those envelopes to write your shopping list on. Then you can stash your coupons inside.

Sometimes you baby really is smiling. Sometimes she just has gas. For that,we have Mylicon drops.After using the last of the Mylicon, I realized that the empty bottle would be a great way to store the dropper and keep it clean.If you found this tip helpful, please consider making a donation.