depends, like canning/freezing, so worth it!! I really don't mind taking the time to do most things, and these days you about have to do whatever it takes to save money!!

I have a lot of free time right now, so saving money is more important. of course I don't make my own laundry detergent anyway, but I do spend extra time on some things, clipping coupons and planning menus to save money, cooking from scratch and making things for my daughter.

It varies for me. I do enjoy saving money, but I am short on time. Before I had a child, I did more myself. Now with him...I fall somewhere else on the time/money continuum.

For example, every couple of months I go to a meal-prep place. Not cheap, at $14 per entree (which is 2-3 meals for us). I calculated that I am paying about $10 an hour for not having to shop, chop, and cleanup.

It's only about 6 meals every two months that I am paying for. But that's also about 6 hours of time that I get to keep. And I do make more than $10 an hour at my job

I do still make my own yogurt.

Isn't it great to know we have options?

i'm also with everyone else it depends on what it is.. now that i don't work i do have more time so i do more of the making and doing stuff myself but when i worked i would have gladly paid someone to save the time... it just depends on what it is.

We pay to have our oil changed too. This may not be the case now, but in the past, there was no place to discard used motor oil here. It's cheaper for us in the long run to have the oil changed and maintain our vehicles properly.
One thing DH did recently was change a burned-out brake light bulb, but in the the process, he had broken the lens cover (damage is minor). A new lens cover costs approximately $160. In retrospect, maybe it would have been cheaper to have it changed out by someone else.
Now as far as cleaning the house, even when I worked FT, I could not fork over my earnings to pay for a housekeeper. I had a few things that absolutely had to be done (ie the bathrooms, kitchen & laundry), but could let the rest slide until I had the time.

I'm in agreement that it all depends. There are some things we do ourselves because we see the benefit in them and then there are things that we will pay a little extra to have done because we value our time more. But there are times that expendable money does play a factor in our decision and we end up doing something ourselves that we'd rather pay for the convenience simply because we don't have the money. Or vice versa, we pay for the convenience becasue we do have the money.

This all came about because I was watching a show that was talking about how valuable our time is. It broke down certain things like cleaning your house & doing yardwork vs. hiring someone to do them. It came down to our time is money and is it worth more to be spending time with family and doing things you want to do or doing things like dusting and mowing to save money. Which is better for you I think comes down to individual preferences, needs, wants and desires.

i've actually talked with my dh about this. over the holidays when i was working way more hours a week than normal and dh was maintaining his full time job, i stopped making my dd's baby food homemade. i started buy Gerber. how nice it was to just open a jar of something nutritious, rather than cooking the food, storing it in a bunch of containers, then having to wash those containers out after they were used, and repeating. it was getting to the point where my baby was just eating baby cereal because it was easy. i'm sorry, i love my dd, but i thought the time i used to use making/ storing food was better spent reading to and playing with her.
my husband thinks it's a waste of money to buy things we could make for cheaper at home, but i don't see him making the homemade baby food either. this is one thing that's way more convenient for us.

Saving time is sometimes saving $ too. For example, say we are eating beans and need to make it a little different from the beans we always eat. Say I want to put them in a pesto sauce. I can make my own pesto (cheaper) or buy it premade (time saver). Frankly, if I have the $, I would buy the premade. Yes, pesto is easy but I don't want to have to sit around forever cleaning out the food processor blades and all that. Just the thought of that makes me want to call for pizza I use aluminum pans for a lot of my meals and other thingsthat speed up the clean-up because for me, I hate to clean up after cooking. If I had to clean up every night, I'd be eating out a lot more, and spending a lot more money in the long run.....

For the Most part I like Saving Time. Yes I know I can Save big by making my own but alot of times my times more important. For example buying a time saving slightly exspencive freezer meal. Saves time because all I have to do is stick it in the oven but still is more costly then making the same meal from scrach yet on the other hand having the Time saving meal available also helps me by preventing us from just going out when we don't have the modivation to cook.
At the same time I will save money by making hand made gifts. I enjoy the time I spend making something. Like I now make all my cards and invites. I enjoy doing something so its time well spent and if I am going to spend money on a hobby anyway I might as well be productive about it.

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006