Sites around the web, including this one, are always pushing free or DIY alternatives to lots of things. And, in most cases, I think that they (and I) am right. There are so many things that we pay other people to do that we can just as easily do ourselves. Just about a year and a half ago, I built my own deck. It wasn’t necessarily easy, and it certainly wasn’t quicker than hiring someone to do it for me, but boy did it save me some money.
I truly believe that there is little that you and I cannot do ourselves. With a quick search on Youtube for the DIY project, and a few quick web searches, we can have some pretty detailed instructions on how to do anything. Well, OK. Probably not something like brain surgery. There’s probably a bit more of a skill/knowledge gap there. But, certainly, most everything else.
Occasionally, I find a service that I decide I’d rather outsource to someone else. Oil Changes are an excellent example. Can I change my own oil? Absolutely. But, for $30, I get someone else to do it for me. I don’t have to mess around with getting the filter loose, disposing of the waste oil, and I certainly don’t have to crawl around under the car doing it. For me, it’s well worth the $20 or so difference to have someone else do it. That’s more of a choice of convenience. Meaning, for me, that it is just more convenient to have someone else do it and save me the time and effort.
There are, however, some services that have less to do with convenience, and more to do with some other factors.
Saving Time
In the case of my DIY deck, I could have saved a whole lot of time by having someone else do it for me. For a professional with a crew of a couple of guys, it probably would have only taken 3-4 days. Maybe less. It took me several weeks. Obviously, it saved me a lot of money to do it myself, but if I had been crunched for time, it would have made a lot of sense to factor the time it would save into my choice. I had the time, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. (note: I say that now. At the end of the project, I was seriously wondering why I did it myself) The choice to have someone else change my oil isn’t weighted so heavily on saving time, but that is a factor. I can have someone else do the work, and all I have to do is drop the car off.
Motivational
I think this is one that many people discount too often. In many of those cases, people choose to do something themselves strictly to save themselves some money and then fail at it. In my case, I’ve tried, for many years, to control my weight. I used to be an athlete, so I’ve always thought that I had the tools to lose the weight myself. I’d start by finding some calorie counter that was free and start tracking calories. But, what inevitably happens is that I forget to count for a day or two and then it stretches to a couple of weeks. If I had lost any weight, it goes right back on. Sometimes, paying for a service that has free or DIY alternatives can be motivational. You’re paying for it, so you better get the most out of it. I recently joined Weight Watchers Online and that factor has helped a lot. There are other factors, but you better believe that the fact that I’m paying for the service is playing into it as well and keeping me working at it.
Hate/Fear
How could I write this post without adding this factor. There are just some things that you hate to do. For one reason or another, you just hate doing them. To you, not doing that task is worth the money to have someone else do. Maybe it’s mowing the lawn. Maybe it’s changing the oil in your car. Maybe it’s losing weight. Wait, maybe not that one. But, how cool would that be! For me, I tend to avoid major electrical work. There’s just something about the possibility of electrocuting myself that I don’t like… Another would be doing anything very high off the ground. Can’t do it.
Impossible
As much as I (and you), would like to think that there isn’t anything outside of our realm of possibility, we always seem to find something that we just aren’t capable of doing. While I truly believe that you can learn to do many of the things that you think are impossible, I recognize that sometimes there are things that are physically impossible. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen.
Saving money by doing things ourselves is a good trait to have. It helps us keep our budgets from overrunning. It keeps us learning new things. It gives us a sense of self worth by developing new skills and knowledge. But, sometimes, there are other factors at work and we make the choice to have someone else do the work for us. Maybe the cost difference isn’t worth the time you’d put into it. Maybe the extra time you’d spend on it isn’t worth the savings. Or, maybe you need some monetary motivation. Whatever it is, we develop our own factors that go into the decision, and make a choice over whether to do something ourselves, or to hire someone to do it for us.
What are your factors in deciding whether you DIY or not?
Shane Ede is a business teacher and personal finance blogger. He holds dual Bachelors degrees in education and computer sciences, as well as a Masters Degree in educational technology. Shane is passionate about personal finance, literacy and helping others master their money. When he isn’t enjoying live music, Shane likes spending time with family, barbeque and meteorology.
For the last three years, my husband and I have had a very low income, well under the median income level of the average American family. This was a result of my decision to launch a freelance writing career and my husband finishing his Ph.D.
We live in the suburbs of Chicago, so living expenses aren’t low. Simply put, we couldn’t live on what we earned the last three years, which is why we incurred credit card and student loan debt and went through our $12,000 emergency fund.
Things Should Be Looking Up, But. . .
Now, however, the tide is changing, and our income is increasing. My husband has a post-doc position, and my freelance business is growing.
We now are almost at the median income level of the American family in 2009, which was $60,088 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While this should afford us some comfort financially, it doesn’t because we are still cleaning up the financial mess from the past.
Preet Banerjee, author of the website, Where Does All My Money Go, in a recent speaking engagement, classified the ability to incur debt as the bank allowing you to borrow money from your future self. As he says, “One day you will be your future self, and you won’t be happy.”
This is where we are at. Three years ago when we took on student loan debt and credit card debt, we were borrowing from our future selves. The selves we are now, and as Banerjee says, we aren’t happy.
Avoiding Mistakes of the Past
My husband and I both feel that we are in an important phase of our financial life. If we can get through this period of paying down debt and growing our income without incurring any more debt, we should be in a comfortable financial position a few years from now, ideally debt free and with an even greater income.
However, that means a few more years of struggling now.
For instance, we are facing $2,000 in car repairs, and we just don’t have the money now. A few years ago we would have put the expense on our credit card, but we refuse to go that route anymore. Instead, we are scrimping and saving for the repairs, and meanwhile, I’m trying to walk rather than drive to buy us more time until we need to make the repairs.
I find it a bit humorous that credit card use allows people to fool themselves into thinking they have more money than they do.
Using credit cards now would help us float through for another year or so until our income increases greatly, but we won’t do that again. We are living on what we earn and paying down debt even though it isn’t a comfortable process. We are done borrowing from our future selves.
Banerjee puts it succinctly when he says, ” Think of borrowing money today as negotiating a pay cut with your future self.” He also asks, “How much money do you want to pay to spend your earnings earlier?” i.e. pay interest on borrowed money?
Our answer is clear. We aren’t going to negotiate any pay cuts with our future selves. We are struggling now, so our future selves can have a more comfortable life.
Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.
I don’t use any online financial tools. And it’s not for the reason you’re probably thinking of. It isn’t because I’m afraid that my information is going to get stolen and some hacker is going to run off and steal all my money to buy the country of Dubai. It’s not that I don’t find them to be useful. In fact, I find them to be quite useful. For most people who aren’t me.
Actually, the reason that I don’t use any online financial tools is that very few (read: none) of them seem to connect to all of my accounts. I’m not a person who likes having only half the picture. I like to see everything all at once. Not half here, and half there, or one account here, and the rest over there. Everything. Part of this is my fault. I use all kinds of accounts. Most of them are online accounts and usually show up in any of the tools that I try and connect them to. But, I also use some local accounts. Those local accounts are usually the problem.
Ready For Zero
I tried using this not that long ago. They’re a sponsor of the Debt Movement, and have glowing reviews around the web for their tool. And, from what I’ve seen of the Ready for Zero tool, it does look like a pretty cool tool. It allows you to set up your accounts, get them set up into a payment plan similar to a debt snowball and then helps you optimize that plan for the best bang for your buck. Only one problem. My local Credit Union accounts aren’t linkable. If I can’t include a good portion of my debt accounts in the plan, it throws off the entire plan. How can I expect the tool to give me accurate information if it doesn’t have accurate account information to go off of?
Adaptu
Adaptu is a little bit like Mint. They both allow for linking all of your accounts (deposit and loan) and then their tool gives you a full overview of your finances. There’s more to both, of course, but I stopped investigating when I couldn’t link up all of my accounts. The culprit in both cases was, again, my local Credit Union account.
There are other tools, but every one of them I’ve tried has had a similar problem. In most cases, it’s the local CU that is causing the hiccup. Is that fair to the tools? Probably not. Really, it’s more of a poor reflection on the local institution than it is on the tools.
Yes, I could move my finances to another institution and probably start using some of these tools. But, I’m lazy. For a long time, I was forced to have an account there, so it made sense to just use it for all of my banking. Now that I’m not required, I find that I just don’t want to tackle having everything changed to a new institution. What a hassle to change automatic transactions, re-enter all my bill pay stuff, and then link a new account to the myriad of other places that I have accounts. It’s just easier to not do it.
Except when I want to use an online tool.
Do you use any online tools? Have you ever had problems with getting your accounts linked up in them? What did you do about it?
Shane Ede is a business teacher and personal finance blogger. He holds dual Bachelors degrees in education and computer sciences, as well as a Masters Degree in educational technology. Shane is passionate about personal finance, literacy and helping others master their money. When he isn’t enjoying live music, Shane likes spending time with family, barbeque and meteorology.
