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The way I've always heard it stated was: "Your time is only worth money if you'd otherwise be working." If I had to decide between fixing my washing machine and doing a freelancing job that pays $200/hr + paying a repairman to fix it, then I have an economic decision to make. If instead, I would otherwise be wasting time playing video games or watching TV, then it always makes sense to do the job yourself.

> If instead, I would otherwise be wasting time playing video games or watching TV, then it always makes sense to do the job yourself.

It depends on how much you value your free time and how much you enjoy fixing your washing machine. I spend five days working, I get two days for the weekend. The weekend days are scarcer and more valuable to me - I'm not going to give them up at the same price I give up a weekday.

Given a choice between fixing my washing machine myself and paying a repairman to fix it while I enjoy some hobby time, well up to a certain cost, I'd rather relax with a hobby.

Right, but that has nothing to do with your compensation during work hours. I was specifically objecting to OP's:

> If you're in tech, the value of the time you spend driving to the store will probably be higher than all the tools you'll buy while you're there.

Implying that if you're not in tech (read: don't have a high salary) then your free time is not worth as much. I think most people value their free time like you described, not measured in terms of dollars, and certainly not proportional to how much they make in their day jobs.

How much you're willing to pay to have things done certainly has a very direct relationship to the amount you've got left over at the end of the month. Pretending that's not true because you can't literally weight up hourly rates isn't very useful.

>If I'm doing a project like installing the washing machine myself over the weekend, I value my time at exactly $0/hour

If I'm doing a project I want to do because it's a fun challenge (like the time I replaced the main pump in my dishwasher), I value my time at $0/hour.

But if it's a project I don't really want to do (like pulling ethernet cables through my cramped and dirty crawl space so I can put in an ethernet jack next to the TV), then I value my time at twice my hourly wage and if I can hire someone to do it cheaper, I hire them.

It's true that I get paid the same $0 on a weekend whether I'm crawling under my house or going on a hike, I'm willing to pay money to get out of an unpleasant task so I can do something pleasant instead.

> This is the wrong way to think about things. You cannot usefully compare the value of time spent on work vs on hobby.

I'd consider this sort of move of house maintenance to be more of a chore than a hobby project, though maybe that's just because I've already done it before and it's not interesting or satisfying to do it again.

In any case - I do agree that attempting to apply the same thinking to the hours spent in day to day tasks as work needs to be done very mindfully, or even carefully. One of the worst practices I had early in my career when I was freelancing and had a few clients that were happy to give me as many hours as I wanted to take was to use that as an excuse to replace other tasks with work. Paying someone else to do 30 minutes of grocery shopping so that I can work an extra half hour and end up with a profit, ordering lunch multiple times per week because the time it'd take me to cook and clean up would end up 'costing' me more than just continuing to work on something I enjoyed.

Before you know it you start thinking of chores as complete wastes of time rather than normal things that are good for your character to be able to do consistently. Ended up with a significantly better financial outlook than I'd have had otherwise since I had the work ethic/life balance to take advantage of that situation and not completely tank other aspects of my life, but looking back I'd rather have kept the more mundane discipline.

If you don't regularly do house fixing/improving or household chores, and you just pay someone, you easily fall into the trap of believing it is all very simple and of low value. You soon will wonder why you 'pay so much' and it is still 'poorly executed' and taking 'too much time'. Having experienced the problems mentioned in the article puts one down to earth.

Replacing the wax rings and the closet flange on a toilet really makes you appreciate it when your plumber charges $300 and does the job in about 20 minutes versus the few hours it takes you.