Mounting and Balancing Tires.
Alignments.
Alignments.
Is there anything you can hire out cheaper than you can do it yourself?
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
Most things I don't do for a living can be done cheaper than I can do it myself if I consider my time's worth and my income level. At least assuming that I hire the right person who demand a high quality, I likely won't deliver the same quality myself compare to a pro.
Absolutely, some jobs do require expensive tools/machinery and not just skills. I can do some woodwork or metal work but do not have the tools and not looking forward to buying them. Heck, I'm not even buying oil extractor or pressure brakes bleeder.
I paid C$3k for a custom built cabinet (few years back) to my dimensions and design, picked materials too, I'd not be able to do it cheaper or faster myself.
I paid C$3k for a custom built cabinet (few years back) to my dimensions and design, picked materials too, I'd not be able to do it cheaper or faster myself.
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2021
- Messages
- 209
I sometimes think of how Ford used to want to do as much as possible themselves. From making their own nuts and bolts, to mining sand and making their own windshields, to owning their own rubber trees to make tires.
Somewhere along the way, they decided it was the better move to hire other companies to make most of their stuff for them.
It's a little hard to wrap my head around how this can be so, but apparently it is.
Somewhere along the way, they decided it was the better move to hire other companies to make most of their stuff for them.
It's a little hard to wrap my head around how this can be so, but apparently it is.
My son bought a house with an unfinished basement. Built a two bedroom apartment down there with washroom and kitchen. Did all the electrical plumbing and drywalling himself with some friends. But.....the mudding and taping...hired a pro. Done much faster and ready to paint in two days. When someone has the skills and experience.... you can't compete with them.
Funny we did that exact thing in a new house bought with down stairs unfinished. I did plumbing and electrical. Hired drywall. Easy and saved a bundle on the house. I have since done much drywall still slow but looks good
How do they know how much to spend and what you'd like? Do they cook too?
I'm doing a timing belt because if a badly leaking water pump on a TDI because everyone was booked weeks out, I need the car fixed by Tuesday, and they wanted $1200-1500.
I got the parts for about $450.
$750-1050 is several days after theft (aka taxes) of me working. Have dozens of other projects, but such is life.
Do I want to be tearing into it when it's 10* outside? Not really, but at least it's not -20*.
One of those projects is redoing the shop bathroom so I can then build a mezzanine and then build shelving to store most of the stuff currently in the main area, preventing cars from fitting.
Home delivery from an app not a personal shopper. It can just be dropped off or even put away for extra $$$. Technology is also outsourcing. We cook.
I always go holy !@#$%$@! 8f I hire out as I could have done it way cheaper and often better.
Like had my car aligned. They somehow got grease all over the headliner, like a kid did finger paints.
Had to fight with them, they tried to say that was all there before
And charged WAY too much.
Ordering through a grocery stores website?
I've tried using those site when in the store trying to find ONE product and they'd make a nun swear with how crap and slow they are.
A month of groceries takes me maybe an hour to get. Online... probably die of starvation before.
To summarize:
1.Any projects that require you to be solo for handling heavy stuff that requires more than one person.
2. Any project that involves heights or risk of injury.
A good man knows his limits.
1.Any projects that require you to be solo for handling heavy stuff that requires more than one person.
2. Any project that involves heights or risk of injury.
A good man knows his limits.
In agriculture it's usually cheaper to hire out hay production rather than do it yourself especially if you don't have many acres to put up. However I've had a few arguments with locals and family that once you figure the lost hay quality in waiting on someone it's no longer cheaper. I spent a lot of $ on my own equipment but I put up hay when it's best for me, not someone else's schedule.
There are certainly jobs for which it makes sense to hire them out and others that are so stupid easy that it makes sense to DIY.
I find that DIY time is also therapeutic, at least for me.
We all have to find that balance in what we can do and what we choose to do.
Growing older and wealthier also shifts that balance.
Young and poor everything is DIY. Older and less concerned about spending a little money shifts the balance, as does physical degradation over the years.
When I was thirty I thought nothing of getting up on the roof, for example. At sixty eight, it's not happening.
I find that DIY time is also therapeutic, at least for me.
We all have to find that balance in what we can do and what we choose to do.
Growing older and wealthier also shifts that balance.
Young and poor everything is DIY. Older and less concerned about spending a little money shifts the balance, as does physical degradation over the years.
When I was thirty I thought nothing of getting up on the roof, for example. At sixty eight, it's not happening.
Snow plowing, now that I have a large yard to plow, instead of buying something expensive to do my own, i hire a neighbor who has a farm tractor. When it snows he comes over, plows my yard, and charges me a pittance of what it would be if I did my own. Also I can do other work, or not even be home, and its done. Not sure how many places he does in the neighborhood, but many I believe. I was going to buy a machine, and do my own, but the purchase price alone for an old used machine would be about as much as 25 years of him plowing. Then add time, fuel, maintenance, etc.
Bargain of the century is hiring it out.
Bargain of the century is hiring it out.
All that $ needed to hire someone to do things I don't want to do, go for heat, food and taxes.
I'm just glad an EV is not part of my electric bill too.
I'm just glad an EV is not part of my electric bill too.
Refinishing hardwood floors. Sure you can rent the machines and polyurethane and stain are readily available but the hill ain't worth the climb.
My EV adds less per mile to the electric bill than the ICE adds to the charge cards.
