Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

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Quite a few in the list amount to "Hire someone to do some optional service for you." I mean, I know I can do all these things. Who doesn't know this? It's not that we don't know we can do these things, it just seems so wasteful to hire someone to do some thing that you (assuming you are able-bodied) can do yourself. Hire someone to "stand in line for you" or "run errands"? Are you kidding me? It's like the Anti-Frugal.

I'm a bit of a DIY obsessive, so maybe I'm just all the way on the other side of the spectrum, but I don't hire someone to do something unless I feel the task is so far outside of my comfort zone that it poses a danger to me. I usually only do it after I've tried the task myself and utterly failed. You'd be surprised what you can do yourself with just a few YouTube tutorials and a decent collection of tools. As a side effect, I've gotten pretty good at being handy around the house, managing the family's finances, repairing our cars, doing major home improvement projects including building barns and sheds, building furniture, lawn care, tree trimming, electrical, plumbing, etc. I consider developing these skills a better investment than the alternative which is perpetually needing to pay someone to do them.

And all it costs is my time, which is free.

DIY for its own sake is often a "penny wise, pound foolish" approach. I recently needed a new TV stand, but I didn't feel like paying even what a cheap ikea version would cost. thinking myself quite clever, I bought a bunch of cinder blocks and a piece of particle board from home depot instead. the total cost was about $12, mostly for the board. it makes a very stable platform for the TV, but it weighs at least five times as much as the cheap ikea stand. it takes four trips to move the damn thing and it leaves cinderblock dust everywhere. I regret that decision every time I move or even rearrange my room.

I also like to DIY so what you are saying makes sense to me. However I also realize that there are things I don't know how to make and I have no interest in (for me it's taxes, administrivia and co). Those things I am gladly paying somebody to do that for me as I am effectively buying free time. And someone who is not into DIY is also buying free time if they hire someone for trimming their trees.

Author here. This is a great point. I'll add the non-obvious DIY options to the list. They're just as important.

> And all it costs is my time, which is free.

Well my time is definitely not free; people pay lots of money for access to it.

The problem with "muh welcome to upper middle class prosperity" lists like this is it doesn't account for the management time and mental load involved in something like "Hire a researcher or expert consultant." For that matter "Cleaning services" or "Hire a graphic designer to turn your appalling sketches into ..." require significant cognitive overhead and time to hire and manage unless you or your spouse or close friends are already doing such things for your day job. If you're already doing such things for your day job you probably already thought of these things.

Some of them are pretty insane: people who need a maid to chuck their clothes into the washer and dryer, then put them away: if it takes you longer than 15 minutes a week to do this ... I have to wonder at your wardrobe. I mean, I understand some people deeply resent performing such menial tasks, or maybe they have large families, but it's not that big a job compared to feeding yourself and getting some exercise.

For myself, hiring experts to assist with my day to day life has been a fairly mixed bag, and my education, hobbies and lifestyle is such that DiY is usually the win.

> if it takes you longer than 15 minutes a week to do this ... I have to wonder at your wardrobe

Consider a large family with multiple children, a humid environment where towels have to be washed often or they smell, plus the safety precaution of washing outside clothes more often to eliminate any possible coronavirus, then you have the recipe for a full load of laundry almost every day. It easily adds up to way more than 15 minutes a week.

> Well my time is definitely not free; people pay lots of money for access to it.

Your working time is worth money, but your free time is free. Your time is only worth money (opportunity cost) if you'd otherwise be working on some money-making opportunity.

If it's 1. Hiring someone for $25/hr to mow the lawn while I work on a contract that's making me $200/hr, I'd choose to hire the gardener. If it's 2. Hiring someone to mow the lawn while I play video games, I'm better off if I mow it myself.

I charge by the hour, so my "free time" is billable too. Focuses the mind knowing whatever you're doing when you're not working is billable hours (hence no vidya). I still mostly make my own food, coffee and wash my own clothes. Hell Paul Krugman washes his own clothes in his sink, while he's travelling, and I'm pretty sure he bills more than I do (I actually do use laundry service when I travel for work).

Anyway, maybe that's why I don't see a lot of those things on the list as desirable; if I have to spend two hours managing the graphic designer to make a chart/plot/figure, I may as well fiddle around in xfig or whatever to get it done myself.

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