Congratulations! You are a Time Billionaire – Make the most of it

Here is an interesting thought experiment – would you switch places with Warren Buffet?

When I ask this question, people say – Yes. After all, who would not want to be a multi-billionaire? But in addition to being rich, you will also be 91 years old. When given this information, almost everyone changes their answer!

It seems being a time billionaire is preferable to being a dollar billionaire.

Time Billionaire

I first came across the concept of Time Billionaire on a Tim Ferriss podcast.

A billion seconds is about 31 years. Life expectancy is now close to 80 will continue to increase in the future. Most people are time billionaires. If you are in your 20s, you are a double billionaire!

The value of money goes down exponentially, and the value of time increases exponentially as we get older. Teenagers may not value their time. Adults value their time more; older people even more so. Someone who has only a day to live will gladly trade away all their money to live longer.

The irony of life is that we all start off as time billionaires. Then we spend our time making money while ignoring everything else. And in the end, we are willing to trade money to get more time.

When you work, you exchange your time for money. Exchanging time for money is a one-way exchange. There is no way to reverse it (exchanging money to buy time). So be careful how you spend your time, much more than how you spend your money.

Time Billionaires and Personal Finance

So, what does this have to do with personal finance? We are obsessed with dollar billionaires while ignoring our greatest asset – time.

Time billionaires have a long time horizon. They can afford to take risks. Losing all your money when you are just starting out is better than losing all your money when you are older. You have many decades to recover.

The other big advantage time billionaires have is they can leverage the magic of compounding. Small sums of money can grow to enormous amounts when compounded over decades. For example, investing just $20 every day for 31 years will yield close to $1.5 million! Even better, invest in yourself – learn a skill that can help you make more money, and watch that money compound over decades.

Successful investors like Buffett have excellent investing skills, but you have an even bigger advantage – time. This gives you the option to be patient and make long-term, multi-year, or even multi-decade bets.

Would Buffett give a billion dollars to gain a billion seconds? I bet he would. He might give up many more billions to get 31 years back.

Remember, time billionaires are the wealthiest among us!