Richmond DinhCreator & Founder of Tiny Challenges™

I Paid $70 to Wash My Car, Here’s Why..

14 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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1:12

In this monologue, Richmond Dinh explains why paying $70 for a professional car wash is a smarter financial decision than washing the car himself. He calculates the opportunity cost of the hour‑and‑a‑half it would take to wash the car, showing that in that time he could create three pieces of content, reach 20‑30 new leads, schedule two sales calls, and close one $5,000 client. This illustrates his shift from a scarcity‑driven mindset—shaped by his Vietnamese immigrant parents who emphasized frugality and rationing—to a value‑based approach that treats time as his most valuable resource. He argues that allocating time to high‑value activities, rather than trying to save small amounts of money, is the key to increasing earnings and breaking free from old habits of trading time for money.

Chapters

How much is a standard wash? Uh, $70. $70. The old me would have never paid that, and I would have washed the car myself. But I realized that my hourly rate is worth way more than $70 because it would have taken me at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half to do it all by myself. But in that time, I could produce 3 pieces of content, DM at least 20 or 30 new leads, get 2 sales calls in my books, and then out of the 2 sales calls, close one into a $5K program. So in that time, I could be trying to save $70 by washing my own car or making $5,000 by signing a brand new client. And that's a big shift I had when it comes to being very intentional on where you spend your time and where you're trying to save money. And I get it, I grew up in a very scarcity household because my parents came here from Vietnam and we had to finish all our food on the table, we had to ration everything and save, save, save, save, save. And my dad would not approve of me paying $70 to pay for a car wash when he would probably even do it himself. But you need to understand that your time is your most valuable resource and where you allocate your time would dictate on how much money you make, and that's why you're stuck with where you are right now, because you've been taught on how to trade your time for money rather than trading value for money.