What if Price tags shows Hours of Work instead of Money?

[lombok]

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we forget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

It will affect the way I spend money. Sometimes we don't know how much time we spend raising the money we are using to buy a thing. When I calculate how many hours I spend to earn the amount I spend recklessly, I begin to regret why I spent the money.

In my view, valuing items based on work hours might promote prudence. People will spend carefully since they know how long they worked for a particular thing. This doesn't mean that it will end recklessness. Some people might not care about this concept.

With the alteration in the time spent on work, you start viewing all the labels on each display case differently. You get to understand that purchasing an expensive jacket means spending many hours in the office behind your desk. All impulsive urges tend to disappear as you remember how tired you are after staying late at work. Ordinary things become very expensive in relation to what part of your life they cost you. Shopping becomes a matter of evaluation. I think that this realization restrains your urge to spend.

[Finebone]

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we forget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

I understand the point you are trying to make her, but try to know that people that are careless with money will always be careless, while those that are careful on how they spend will always be careful, even though the numbers of hours used to make such is place on the goods or services.

Personally I don't pay much attention to price of things I bought, I mean to be going to other shops to confirm price, but what I care more on is to get the satisfaction from what I spent my money on, so as long as I got my desired satisfaction, I don't care too much on hours or price tags on goods.

[Mrbluntzy]

Logically this is just the same thing as having the price tag, assuming I entered a shop to buy a new PC and the price tag is $2k meanwhile my monthly salary is $2.5k, if I wish to know how many work hours/dats it will cost me to come up with that money, I will have to divide my monthly salary by number total number of days I work in a month, Salary÷total work days which determines how much I earn per day if it's a 9-5 job. So, there's no difference here, the maths is very easy to solve, it doesn't really mean anything, if someone has the habit of spending recklessly, they will still continue with their habit even if they know that an item will cost them 500 hours of work.

[Inior]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?
We are used to looking at prices in our local currency but we hardly think about how much time we have spent working just to gather up that money. For someone earning very well, buying things might mean just some few hours of work while someone earning small could spend weeks or even months for the same item.

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we areforget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices incqqqq was the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

It is still almost similar, like in your illustration someone earning small actually can't even afford some certain things and they mostly go for things that are of need, but some who earns well has the grounds to go for something luxurious even if they actually don't need it.
So already things are programmed as such so you don't need the shops and stores to put hours of work as price tag because already you know how much you work and what you earn.

I don’t think it’s similar, and here’s why I think so. This illustration made by the op might seem like a regular thread but from my perspective it’s a call to reasoning.
Two of the most valuable asset we have in life is our health and time and we trade this two things for money. Most people lost their health(fall sick) because they didn’t make enough time to take care of themselves all because of the stress and the ambition to chase the bag. But here’s the funny and the most interesting point, we sometimes spend the same money wey traded with our two most important life’s assets on things that are not important just to impress other who are also spending their life most valuable assets for survival. This is part of the reason why some persons would likely remain poor forever.
In other words what I’ve been saying is, if we actually sit down to calculate the value of our life that we are exchanging for money we wouldn’t spend that money anyhow.

[coin-investor]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?

Why not if I need the phone, regardless of the hours, I'm still going to buy that phone. I'm working to buy things that I need as long as the price is reasonable based on the standard price converted to an hourly rate, but I don't see the logic of making the price on a per-hour basis.
Some people have a higher rate than others, and the store will not do this, as this will discourage people from buying. The store owners want to have sales, and they even offer a discount price just to make more sales.

[Cryptomultiplier]

If price tags actually do become hours of work instead of  money, am sure every item we purchase would be weighed properly against our limited time because this would cause a mindset shift and expose human cost, we would think twice before making certain expenses and this would give money a certain power over life because not everyone even the rich would be able to afford the cost of hours of work when we know they mostly make their wealth from return on investment.
Just my thoughts though.

[Merit.s]

This doesn't make any sense to me since, you said that some people who are rich will work few hours and get the money to buy the shoe. So, if the shop puts 200 hours of work in order for you to become the rightful owner of the shoe, don't you think that the rich wouldn't accept it because they don't need to work for that long hours just to buy a pair of shoes.

It's not everyone that work to get money some people are living on inherited wealth.

[knuckey]

Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

Damn, I just realized it. Because most money is in paper form and is obtained after payday, when holding money we don't think about buying something we want because when holding money, we feel wild like a hungry tiger wanting to satisfy its hunger, making most of us not realize that what we are buying is actually a week's work.
If we were to buy at a shopping center during working hours, we wouldn't just think twice, but every time.

[Mayor of ogba]

We are working so that we can be able to pay for our bills and take care of our children, so if shops displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working instead of money, it would have been better because people won't look for job again they would have to work for anything they need, like if you need to restock your groceries, you will just need to go to grocery store and work for the groceries that you need and when you work for the hours tag on the groceries, you will be allowed to go home with them. But I think this kind of thing wouldn't work because people earn different money in an hour.

[Felicity_Tide]

would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

I honestly don't see a need for this considering the fact that payment structure differ across all sectors.
Ideally, every country has what we call 'national minimum wage', which is legally the least amount that an employer is supposed to  pay their employee within a certain period. But mind you, there are people who earn far above that in every country as well, so I don't think it's possible to bring this exact idea into reality.

And, I also don't think it would make any difference in terms of how people spend their money. It's not like it's going to make everyone a bit more cautious about how they spend when everything is still technically the same.

[ColdLava40]

Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

So what difference would it make and what use would it be for?

At the end you still have to pay for the item with money not hours spent.

Many people out in hours, months. Years just to make enough money to purchase an item.

But if it is going to be counted In time instead of cash, people will give up before they get to half of the time given to purchase the item.

As long as everyone has different rate of pay which depends on their level of skill and knowledge, their time would be different.

Same item that took you years of hard work could cost another just few months of smart work to purchase. It's is just how life works.

[Ndabagi01]

There is no difference and people will continue to adapt to any change that is happening around them. Price tag for an item and hour of work are almost similar because you’ll have to work for some specific time in a day in order to earn some money for yourself.

So going to a store to see the hours you’ll need to work to in order to be able to afford an item already says a lot about how serious you’ll take your work and not allow any time pass without making good use of it to work. They are the same thing, one is just represented differently than the other.

[Franklyn-wood]

I still feel people will purchase if things are tagged by hours and not in currency because humans are made to adapt to situations and as long as that's the only means to get what they want, they will do it. It will look like purchasing with money, even, just that those who can't afford much will buy within their means or keep working still dey can afford it.

This will be a little hard to adapt to in my country because a lot are living below that amount mentioned above I mean 1100$. Some average people don't get this amount in a year let alone in weeks or months, so it will be difficult for such a person to survive with price tags per hour. This simple means there won't be savings, all expenses will be cut down to manage the money earned avoid unnecessary expenses and to cultivate reserve of more money for investment and other things like emergency.

[Btcdeybodi]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?
We are used to looking at prices in our local currency but we hardly think about how much time we have spent working just to gather up that money. For someone earning very well, buying things might mean just some few hours of work while someone earning small could spend weeks or even months for the same item.

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we forget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

Lol, funny. I find your analogy to be incorrect because if the things we buy were to measure up with the time we spent while working the money then most of us will be buying things at every cheaper rates. I don't know for other countries but I'm just using my country as a case study for the average person who is earning within the minimum wage because the amount for working 20 hours is so cheap. Except for those that works in high paying jobs, they will be the ones to feel it.

Even the wealthy people won't see it as a threat because their money comes in high level too.
Maybe I may get you wrongly but if you are talking about the energy and the efforts we use to get a work done then only few people will have the mind to buy something worth 20 hours.

[Rruchi man]

I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

If that becomes the case, then the analogy that time is money will make more sense because people will be more conscious of the amount of time they spend knowing what it actually means. In such a case what will bother you may not be the amount of time you need to spend to purchase an item, but if the item you are about to spend your time on buying is actually worth it.

On the concept of time, it is understood that time lost/used cannot be replaced, so if people buy items based on hours of work instead of monetary value, people will be more conscious about how much they spend on items to ensure that they are not wasting time on unnecessary things because the value for it knowing is higher, knowing they cannot get back the time they invested or have to invest to get the item. 

[viljy]

Why specify these labor hours? Everyone already understands this perfectly well when they buy something. The media sometimes even write comparisons about how many centuries an average worker (or teacher, or doctor) would have to work to buy a house in some luxurious neighborhood, or a Bugatti, or something else. That’s something similar to what the OP came up with. There’s no particular point to it, only confusion, since the cost of labor hours is different for everyone.

[sunsilk]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?

Nope, someone's time can be the same with the others but how valuable it is differs. Just like for someone who needs to work at least 20 hours to pay for that shoes while the others can work on it 5 hours and less.

So, we see how valuable time is in producing money or with the jobs that we can do. There's a movie about this and that's the "In Time" of Justin Timberlake.

Although this is the reality of the different wages hourly rates of each country, someone in the other side of the world only takes a couple of days of work to purchase iPhone. But on the other it will cost them 50 and more days of labor.

[Oasisman]

I'm not sure if this makes any difference, because people are already aware how much money they are earning and how much time they need to work to earn those, but the fact that most people loves to reward themselves with something after a long hours of work means people would continue spending regardless of how the price tag looks like.
We can all do the basic math, so there's ultimately no reason for us to do this, and also this is bad for the business, lol.

[Gozie51]

would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

No. I wouldn't think twice because I would be buying what I can afford. The analysis you made about hours of work to quantify what you want to spend your money on is not really logical. You compared both people who are rich and not rich together interms of how much hours they will work in monetary conversion but you should also understand that people have different taste depending on their status. Also, hours of work in monetary value is not the same thing depending on skill, profession or expertise. So you won't compare how many hours a skilled labour personal will generate compared to unskilled labour. There is a general saying that "cut your cloth according to your size". In other words, people have different class, status, work hours and how much the work is valued differently.

[Bitcoin Smith]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?
We are used to looking at prices in our local currency but we hardly think about how much time we have spent working just to gather up that money. For someone earning very well, buying things might mean just some few hours of work while someone earning small could spend weeks or even months for the same item.

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we forget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

So you saw the movie or thought about it on your own.

If anyone who wonders how it will be then there is an actual movie with the same concept: In Time (2011)

You will get paid in hours/minutes and you spend them as it is, but the only difference is they will die if theior time runs out to zero and also they touched the concept of inflation and rich people's strategy and really an interesting move to watch.