[JGW]

Doing it yourself can be a good way to be frugal, but that depends on two things:

1) Are you actually capable of doing a good job (be honest), and,

2) Is your time more valuably spent doing something else?

With respect to 1), I cannot even count the number of houses I’ve seen where ‘Do-it-yourselfer’ projects have significantly hurt the value of the house. Unless your craftsmanship is good and you know building practices well, home DIY projects will take money off the value of your house. This is a long way of saying: If you’re going to do it yourself, make damn sure you do it right and don’t cut corners or you won’t be saving yourself any money.

With point 2), you should always ask yourself what the most valuable expenditure of your time is. For instance, if your typical pay rate is $8 an hour and it costs $15 to have someone else wash your car, then do it yourself. On the other hand, if you could spend that hour working to improve your marketability toward getting a higher-paying job, or already get paid more, or could develop a business lead to bring in a big sale, then pay someone else to do the grunt task and focus your energy and efforts on the things that yield bigger gains. That’s what rich people do, and that’s part of the reason they’re rich. It’s not a ‘looking down’ so much as asking the question: is what you’re doing really the most effective use of your time?

User Detail :  

Name : JGW, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Disability : Deaf, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, Age : 35, City : Seattle, State : WA, Country : United States, Occupation : Architect / Real Estate Developer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,