What is the price of your free time?
February 22, 2009
I know the price of mine. About $130 a week. Since Thanksgiving I have had two jobs. One major downside to working in a place where most people vacation is that unskilled labor is cheap and easy to come by. Which leaves me working 40 hours a week for $9.25 an hour. Last winter my temp job paid $15 an hour. My monthly rent this winter is $512.50, last year in Denver it was $375. Less income plus higher bills makes this girl poor (poor with a ski pass.) And attached to a second job. Until now.
That second job was at a retail outlet, folding clothes and selling sweaters for $11 an hour, between 15 and 20 hours a week. Over the holidays I worked everyday, I need the money and the mountain was crowded anyway, so why not? But I have this annoying ability to be able to do mundane work well, and they wanted me to stay. I did, but now I’ve spent almost four months in Colorado’s high country and been on the mountain 5 times. After yesterday’s run at least the average was more than once a month.
A hefty tax return made my decision for me, I have to quit the second job. So I’ll have to give up… well, nothing. I didn’t have enough time to spend any of the money I was making. Ok, I’ll put off the iPhone purchase for a few months, but it’s not exactly a hardship considering I will have three days off a week to visit all the places I tell people about. I can visit the hot springs, I can snowshoe a thirteener (fourteener even?), I can perfect linking heel and toe edge turns in Vail, Beaver Creek, Breck or even right here in Keystone! At the low cost of $150 a week and my unhappiness.
