Why Pay for Something You Can Do Yourself?
My folks were camping last week so I was going to their house twice a day to let their chickens in and out and to make sure the drip irrigation system for their garden was working. On one of those trips, I ran into their neighbor, J, who was doing the weeding. (Dad has a mini co-op going on with J’s family – they help with weeding and the two families share produce.)
Somehow, in the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I couldn’t WAIT to hire a housekeeper. (I’ve been saying this for MONTHS – but I haven’t taken the action yet.) I got a really strange look from J. She then shared that last week, when she’d been re-painting some exterior trim on her house, she told her daughter, “Never pay for something you can do yourself!”
When is the RIGHT time to DIY and when should you hire a professional? Click To TweetAnd I thought about that – I really have. On the SURFACE, it looks like great advice, right? It’s using the best helping hand you have – the one at the end of your own arm (a favorite saying of MY mom’s when I was growing up). But let’s look at this deeper:
Should you really be doing something because you CAN but that:
- Isn’t your area of genius?
- Is something you don’t like to do?
- Is something you don’t do well?
- Is something you’re not 100% qualified to do?