13 Ways Daylight Saving Time Can Cost You Money

By Nicole Dieker March 9, 2015

1. You take an Uber to work because you oversleep, or wake up too sluggish to get moving: $12

2. You buy a venti caramel flan latte to wake yourself up, feed yourself breakfast, and treat yourself simultaneously: $4.75

3. You get a thing of Pop-Tarts out of the vending machine (or a coffee shop muffin, if you’re working from home) at 10:30 because lattes aren’t the same as food and you’re starving and you can’t remember whether “real time” is 9:30 or 11:30, and all you know is you can’t wait another 90 minutes for lunch: $2.50

4. You lose a bet with a coworker who claims it’s “Daylight Saving Time,” not “Daylight Savings Time:” $10

5. You buy yourself lunch at Chipotle because you did not wake up early enough to pack anything: $10

6. And another soda or coffee around 3 p.m., which is really 4 p.m.? Or 2 p.m.? You don’t care anymore, you have accepted 3 p.m. now, life is meaningless: $1.50

7. As Time Magazine reminds us, you’re more likely to go hang out on that bar patio with your friends when the sun’s out, so get ready to head on over to happy hour: $20

8. Where you also order a big plate of appies because you have been hungry and tired all day: $20

9. You’re at the bar, out in the sunlight with your friends, feeling all rumpled and gross in your tired old clothes, so when you get home you start poking around Old Navy or J. Crew or Ann Taylor Loft or Uniqlo looking for a new spring wardrobe: $150 (you did want to order enough to get the $20 coupon and free shipping, right?)

10. While you’re shopping, you’re also giving in to your kids’/partners’/self’s decision to watch Mockingjay on demand, because why not, you’re tired, it’s a really well-put-together movie even though it makes you feel sad about Philip Seymour Hoffman again: $3.99

11. You’re already planning ahead to buy your lunch tomorrow because you did not realize Mockingjay was like three hours long, what happened to movies that were only 90 minutes long, is this all Titanic’s fault? Anyway, it’s too late to get prepped for tomorrow, everyone’s tired, let’s just go to bed: $10 (for tomorrow)

12. Daylight Saving Time marks the beginning of an increase in energy use that will only continue throughout the warmer summer months; after all, it’s not like you keep your living room lights turned off just because it’s sunny out, and you also keep the TV on and the laptops running and you turn the air conditioner on when it gets warmer, and as the National Bureau of Economic Research discovered, Daylight Saving Time might actually increase your electric bill: $2.00 (a rough estimate of a possible electric bill increase, at the rate of $30 per month times 6 months times the 1 percent electricity increase the NBER reports)

13. You get a text message right before you fall asleep; one of your friends was in a car accident. The rate of car accidents is 17 percent higher the week after Daylight Saving Time, due in part to difficulties related to lack of sleep and physical adjustment to what might otherwise be called “jetlag.” Another friend has already set up the GoFundMe page to help pay for his basic living needs while he recovers. You give as much as you comfortably can — $100 — before you finally fall asleep.

Photo credit: Alex

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