Let's Look - Outsourcing

  

Linking up with Shay and Erika for Let's Look Wednesday.

I am looking forward to the various topics they have chosen for this year. Today we are talking about things we outsource without regret.  

Actually we do not do a lot of outsourcing here, Dave and I are usually of the philosophy that if we can do it ourselves, then we should do it. It's not always about saving money but it's also about pride of ownership of your home and belongings and taking responsibility for the choices you've made in your life. 

Common things that are "outsourced" that we do ourselves:

Cleaning - I'm happy that other people hire housekeepers, but I personally cannot do it. It means our house is never 100% clean at one time, but it works for us.  

Ski tuning - With the boys in ski racing it is best to tune and wax their skis every few weeks and certainly before a race.  Dave got all of the equipment and learned how to do it at home, and is teaching E now, and it save so much money. Each tune can be about $75 per pair of skis, and that would be a big expense if we outsourced it. 

Repairs (car, appliance, and home) - We are fortunate that Dave is handy and likes to figure out how to do things himself.  YouTube is an invaluable tool and he will do his research to troubleshoot a problem and has the confidence to fix it himself. He even fixed our friends' dishwasher when we were at their cottage, which was a real lifesaver with ten people in the house!

Car washing, lawn care/gardening, snow removal - This is part of the "pride of ownership" thing I'm talking about. It's our home and car and we want to take care of these things.  

Cooking/meal prep - Where cleaning is not really my thing, cooking and meal prep is. Occasionally I may buy a pre-made item to take to someone's house, and we do certainly order in food and go out to eat, but mostly we do home cooked meals. 

Travel planning - This is another thing I love to do. Once we used a travel agent to book our cruise back in 2011 when we went with my parents and grandparents, and my parents still use a travel agent for their cruises, but I like doing my own research and figuring it all out. Like cooking, I think this is strength of mine.

Tax filing - Our taxes are pretty straightforward, we only have our paycheques and a few investments, so it's easy for me to do this with the tax software. I like filling out forms and organizing papers, so although I stay far away from finance at work, I don't mind doing our simple taxes.  

However there are things that just make sense to have someone else do it for us:

Grocery Orders - Not every time we need groceries, but a couple of times a month, I will order our groceries from Loblaws for pick up. The cost ranges from $1 to $5 so it is certainly cost and time effective. 

Oil Change and Tire Change (for those not living in winter climates, we change our tires twice a year to put winter tires on in early winter and regular tires on in spring) - This is something that Dave used to do but we take it into the shop now. It is difficult to dispose of the old oil and if you don't have rims on the tires, it's impossible to change the tires on your own.

Haircuts - I was able to cut everyone's hair during the pandemic with varying degrees of success, but this is definitely something we don't mind paying someone else to do.

Drywall - Now, this doesn't come up very often, but those times that Dave did some home renovations, it was better to bring in the professional drywallers for the big jobs. They are so good and efficient at mudding and sanding. 

I can't really think of anything else we outsource. Maybe when I read through others' posts I will be reminded of other things we get people to do for us.