Tradeoff between time and money: The asymmetric consideration of opportunity costs

This paper investigates how consumers make tradeoffs between time and money with and without reminders to consider the opportunity costs of these currencies and finds an asymmetric pattern in opportunity cost consideration on the part of consumers. When reminded about the opportunity costs of time and money, consumers act to save time but not money when they acquire an experiential possession, and they act to save money but not time when they acquire a material possession. Process tests show that when a consumer acquires a possession that is both material and experiential in nature, her focus shifts to the possession's experiential (material) features when she is reminded about her time's (money's) opportunity cost, and it is this shift in her mindset which leads her to favor saving time over money (saving money over time) to acquire the possession.