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Do it yourselfers are winning, bigly!

Why?

Let's start with the obvious, financially, it's significant in a time where hyperinflation is rearing its ugly face. Have you been getting the same percentage raise as the handyman you must call to fix X Y or Z? Both materials and wages have skyrocketed in the last year, and the projection seems not to be slowing down. So what do you do? Bite the bullet, not go on that vacation you were hoping for, sell your car, move into a more affordable place (let me know when you find that deal!). No, what you do is you fix whatever it is, and I mean WHATEVER IT IS yourself! 

I'm going to link a blog post from many a year ago, so I don't have to go into its finances because I want to go into the behavioral side of it on this post. 

http://livethe.moneylife.us/2015/03/diy-and-why.html

By the way, I did touch on the EGO and behavioral side even back then, 7 years ago. 

So let's dive even further into it now that I have 7 years of DIY, and there really isn't a lot that I haven't done at this point around a house and automobile. Therefore, do I do what I do because of the finances? NOPE, I do what I do for myself, and every job I get done, I learn, I gain confidence in myself, not because I want to have the confidence to possibly do this in the future for wages, HELL NO! I build my confidence in my abilities to tackle whatever life throws at me. And let me tell you, some shit will get thrown your way, and if you didn't fix the leaky faucet, do you really think you'll fix the leaky mainline?! 


Yes, that happened just after I'd finished the master bath work. That's a half-inch crack down the bottom of a cast-iron main, probably 8 feet worth. There's a little back story here; our house for a few months had had a hint of nastiness in the air. I was constantly running draino, adding to the downstairs drain assuming there was some sort of vapor drift. Luckily, or terribly, I was showing the house for an appraisal and walah bubbling drywall! F#$K! However, after ripping out the "finished basement," Which they sucked at finishing anyway! I found that bad boy! Replace it, and its two connecting counterparts, 100 bucks or so later in parts, and our house no longer stinks! 

I bring up this particular story because I didn't even contemplate calling anyone. Therefore the stress levels in my house were highly minimized, I don't recall, but I think it was over some break, holiday who knows. So I put some waterproof tape on it (not duct tape, but you get the gist), and we went about precisely what we were about until I had the day to fix it. You'd think that cutting into cast iron, a mainline, would cause heartburn, but it didn't because this is probably the fifth time I've done it. That being said, I always watch a youtube video before I do anything, even if I've done it many times. New ways of doing things can be more efficient, bring out your thinking cap, and do better work than you could have hired. So when shit (literally) got thrown my way, instead of freaking out, I was able to use a few choice four-letter words and immediately start planning in my head what was needed to fix the issue. 6-hour job, done. And a lasting "heartburn" of an issue was solved! My poor wife couldn't understand my elation of this job. But that smell was driving me berzerk! 

I stated earlier that I don't do it for the finances, and believe it or not, that's true; however, let's be honest, I still keep score! So just like that old ass post, let's take a look at this job, replacement of sewer main, not having to dig, but having to demo (I'm not including the repairs, as I am going to do it right and therefore, the "repairs" are a moot point) in other words getting to the exact position I am in currently, would have been anywhere from 1500-10000. No, I'm not kidding about that. The odds that I could find the proper person to do the job like I did for 1500 is slim to none; it would involve calling my contractor friends and getting a favor done at a time that contractors are charging 150-200 an hour, and they are currently nowhere to be found! The 10,000 would have been if I called a local plumber and just paid the bill. Therefore, let's split the difference call it 3K that it would have cost me to have this job done. As I said earlier about 6 hours of labor, and 100 in parts, means I made after taxes nearly $500 an hour! I just did a little jig! But who's counting? :-)


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