Just because you can do something yourself, doesn’t always mean you should.
This has been a tough lesson for me to learn. For most of my life, if something needed to be repaired, and I was capable of making that repair, I would usually just to do it myself. Whether it was working on my car, or fixing a leaky pipe — if it was something I could tackle, I would. The benefit of doing this was not only did I learn a lot along the way, but I also saved a decent amount of money in the process.
But although I may have saved money, that savings still came at a cost. In those situations, the cost wasn’t in dollars and cents, but in hours and minutes, and possibly stress. Because the reality is, whether I pay someone to do work on my behalf, or whether I end up doing it myself, there will always be some kind of cost.
When I was younger, I had plenty of discretionary time and little money, and so it made sense to do things on my own. But now, I usually have a choice. And even though doing it on my own could save me some money, the question is, what is that really going to cost me? What else could I be spending that time on? How much hassle and stress is it going to bring? What will I have to forego if I spend my time doing this? Because sometimes, the savings isn’t worth the cost.
This weekend, for instance, we had a little plumbing issue (my favorite!). And although I knew what needed to be done, I also knew the time and hassle it would take (not to mention the potential for things to take much longer than I anticipated — they almost always do). And so I had a choice: do I try to save money but probably spend way more time than I want, or do I call a professional?
In previous situations, I would have tried to fix it myself. But in this situation, I decided it was a better use of my time to have someone else do the work. I may not always do this, but in this case, it made more sense.
Whenever we’re in situations like this, what we choose will be impacted by the specifics of the circumstances. But regardless of what we end up deciding, we need to remember that our choice is going to cost us something. It might be money, it might be time. But there will always be a trade-off.