Mary Ann Halpin and her husband Joe Croyle used to run a photo studio in downtown L.A., working 10 hours a day, six days a week. Even so, the overhead was so high, it was a constant struggle to pay the rent. Nowadays they work out of their home, 4 days a week, and spend the rest of their time relaxing and enjoying life.

"People are always saying to me, 'You're so lucky,'" Halpin told home office experts Paul and Sarah Edwards. "But it has nothing to do with luck. It's figuring out what you value, what makes you happy and what brings you peace, and then slowing down your life enough...to make the changes you need."

What you chose to spend your money on is your own business. But perhaps you should evaluate potential purchases in terms of the hours out of your life it takes to get them. Because that's what everything you buy actually costs: hours out of your life. According to Money magazine, in average wages, in 1916 it took 3,162 hours of work to earn a refrigerator. Today it takes 68. Refrigerators have gotten a lot cheaper. Of course a year of public college tuition has gone from 160 hours in 1966 to 260; and a year at a private college has increased from 537 hours to 1,295.

Tactic: Figure out what you net for an hour's work. Then figure out how many hours that big screen TV or shot gun or SUV would cost you. If you get that much enjoyment out of it, great. If not, maybe you'd rather have the hours instead. And maybe you can find a way to get those hours back: either now or a few years down the road. Thanks to the wonder of compounding, a penny saved can soon be a lot more than a penny earned. What's the secret of The Millionaire Next Door? According to the authors of that book, it's lifestyle. Not self denial, just not wasting money any more than you should waste time.

The average family has gotten smaller in the last 50 years but the average new home has doubled in size. And it's filled with a lot more stuff.