More time to write
It’s amazing how easy it’s becoming to find more time to write. Just this past week, I noticed that Amazon.com is now selling grocery items (Affiliate Link! :-). This wouldn’t be that big a deal, but as a member of Amazon Prime, I get free shipping on most of the items I buy through Amazon, and I live in a state with an enormously high sales tax rate (9.75%). I don’t pay taxes on my Amazon purchases.
Of course, if you’re not a member of Amazon Prime, and you’re not in a hurry to get your items, you can also take advantage of the Super Saver Shipping and still get your items delivered for free.
I love that I can now save myself two hours or more of time that would have been spent running to and from Wal-mart to pick up something my local grocery store doesn’t carry. My rural area has only one major grocery store and it never seems to have everything I need, and the things it does have are overpriced and undersized.
Writing time is precious these days, so the extra time is well worth the wait. As a relatively slow writer, two hours of time each week is several pages of whatever book I happen to be working on at the time. In a sense, those two hours each week could mean the difference between meeting my writing goals for the week or not (assuming I only go to the store once a week, which isn’t always true ;-).
On a personal note, I’m excited about the Amazon grocery sales because my sister must maintain a gluten-free diet. The stuff she has to buy is outrageously expensive as it is, but because of size of the town we live in, she has to drive over 50 miles just to buy a package of gluten-free potato flour.
Amazon sells lots of those specialty items and I can get them for her with my Amazon Prime account so she doesn’t have to pay for delivery. :-)
Heather R. said,
July 30, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
This is mighty interesting. I’m going to have to check them out. It reminds me of the old, old days when you could have a “bill” of groceries delivered to your home from the local store. It’s amazing how things have shifted from having an individual in your town deliver groceries to the computer and a courier service (UPS, FedEx, etc.) deliver them!
Thanks for sharing!
Heather R.
Terescia said,
August 1, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Taking advantage of time-saving personal services is an excellent way to regain lost time for writing. There’s a financial tradeoff of course, but I try to always compare only how I’ll feel and not the perceived dollars and cents value of my time. Sometimes it’s not all about the numbers.
I often return from the grocery store feeling overwhelmed and drained and that’s certainly not conducive to writing and creativity. I also fret about the time I’ve spent in the store more than is logical considering what I know to be the dollar value of my time. Like I said, I think it’s about feelings rather than actuality.
So, yes, I find sacrificing money for time to be a great tradeoff regardless of whether or not the dollars lost makes budgeting sense.