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.
Super Bowl 2013 is on February 3, only a week away. If you’re a football fan, you’re probably counting down the days and planning your Super Bowl party. Your whole day, indeed your whole weekend, may revolve around the Super Bowl.
However, if you’re like me, you aren’t a big football fan. In fact, I have no idea which teams are even heading to the Super Bowl this year. (Ed. note: 49ers vs. Ravens)
Still, fan or not, the week before Super Bowl is the perfect time to save some money, and lots of it. The Super Bowl is a national, cultural event, and many sales revolve around Super Bowl viewing “necessities.”
Here are some things you may want to buy and stock up on while they’re cheap during the week before Super Bowl:
Televisions – If you’re in need of a new television, you’re likely to see the lowest prices now, the week before the Super Bowl. The prices now are often even better than those on Black Friday. Of course, if you don’t need a tv, this isn’t a good deal, but if you’ve been thinking about replacing yours, now is the time to do it.
Cable/satellite packages – If you don’t yet have cable or you want to switch providers, now is the time. Cable and satellite companies hope to snag new sports enthusiasts during the big game, and some cultural Super Bowl events, such as the notorious Lingerie Bowl, can only be seen on cable (as well as the much more benign Puppy Bowl).
NFL apparel – Get your favorite team’s jersey at a significant discount this week. Even Victoria’s Secret gets in on this by offering discounted pink NFL gear.
Beverages – If you’re a family of soda drinkers, don’t buy your pop at full price. Stock up during Super Bowl and buy enough to last you through the next big soda sale, which usually happens around Memorial Day. Bottled water is also often on sale. We only buy bottled water for our car trips when driving to conferences, but it’s nice to buy it when it’s at rock bottom price.
Snack foods – If you have a teenage boy or another member of the family who can’t get enough of snacks like nachos, chips, and cheese curls, now is the time to buy them while they are cheap. True, you may need to hide them from your snack monster so they’re not devoured in a few days, but again, you can stock up and save for the next several months until they go on sale again around Memorial Day.
Don’t forget that other condiments like ketchup, mustard, and salsa may also be on sale now.
Foods you can freeze – You’ll also likely find chicken and ground beef on sale, as well as cheese. Don’t forget that you can freeze these items, so stock up and feed your family for the rest of the winter with meat that you got on sale.
Whether you’re a Super Bowl fan or not, this week is the perfect week to stock up on some basics and buy some luxuries at a steep discount.
What is your favorite item to buy during Super Bowl sales?
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.
Conventional wisdom, at least in frugal personal finance circles says you should wait several days (or even weeks) before making most purchases. Especially large purchases.
Personally, I’m usually a pretty patient purchaser. I hate paying retail for most things. When I decide I need something (or even want it), I usually start my search on eBay. Only when the price on eBay is pretty close to retail, or when I just can’t get something at a discount will I purchase it through a retail outlet. And even then, I generally wait for a sale.
Patience is a Virtue
The main reason that experts suggest that you wait on a purchase is that, after thinking about it for a few days, most people will decide that they don’t need the item, or that they don’t want to spend the money on it right then. It also prevents spontaneous purchases. I seldom find that to be true. Well, not entirely, anyways. There have been a few cases where I’ve decided that I really didn’t want the item. I’m also frugal to a fault, and rarely make a spur-of-the-moment purchase. If I see something that I want, I’m off to research it and find the best price for it.
Limited Time Offers
LTOs are my downfall. Because of their limited timeline, I don’t have the luxury of waiting until I can do the same amount of research that I normally do. I still have a hard time purchasing the item, but have been known to buckle under the pressure and pull out my card. (That’s a debit card, thank you.) And, that’s the reason that retailers will have LTOs. Put under the pressure of a deadline, people will often put off doing the research they should and purchase on the spot to take advantage of a great deal.
How I Practice Patient Purchasing
Patient purchasing has probably saved me thousands of dollars over the years. Here’s the method that I generally use.
Decide on the brand and model that you want. This can be the super heavy duty research part of the purchase. I’ll spend time shopping for the item, and then looking online at retailers to find a brand and model that I like as well as get an idea of the average price of the item. e.g. when I last bought a pair of shoes, I first decided on the brand that I wanted to buy (New Balance) and then on the model. Deciding on the model took the most time as they have many models that are built for different strides, pronations, etc. I also found that the full retail for a pair was about $125, but that there were discount retail outlets that regularly sold them for about $100.
Set up a search on eBay. I like eBay. It gives me the ability to fine tune a search and then save it. I also very rarely find that the price that I can get something for on eBay is more than what I can get it for at a retailer. Most of the time it’s quite a bit less. I usually start with a pretty generic search for the brand and model of the item I’m looking for and then fine tune it based on the other qualifications I’m looking for. e.g. in the case of the shoes, I started with a search for “New Balance 757” and then refined the search with the shoe size, width, and maximum price I was willing to pay.
Exhibit Patience. This is the part that some people find to be really hard, but that I find comes pretty easily. I wait. I check the saved search every two or three days (auctions can be run in 1,3,7, or 10 day lengths, but I’m willing to miss a few of the 1 day auctions) and add items that look like good possibilities to my watch list. I then sort my watch list by the auctions that are ending soonest, and will place a bid on the first one for the maximum that I am willing to pay. That usually involves figuring out how much shipping will be, subtracting it from the max I’m willing to pay and then bidding the remainder.
Using that method, I can usually get an item that I want at a price that I want. Being patient is key though. Sometimes it can take me weeks to finally win an auction. In the example I used above (shoes), I think it took me about 3 weeks to get a pair of shoes that I wanted at the price I wanted. In the end, I paid just under $60 (including shipping) for a pair of shoes that I would have paid about $125 for at a retail shoe store.
Is the savings I got worth the time I put into it? If you break down the savings and figure out an hourly savings based on the amount of hours I put into getting the shoes, it would probably not be a very good rate. Below minimum wage for sure. But, for the most part, the time I spent on it is time that I likely would have wasted on watching TV or something anyways. In other words, it was non-productive time and therefore had little monetary value associated to it in the first place. I got a new pair of shoes, and saved money doing.
Are you a patient purchaser? What are your methods for buying bigger ticket items?
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.
