How much, how often, do you do for yourself and how much, how often, do you pay others to do for you?

I do the yard work, clean the house, rake leaves, shovel snow, wash cars, sew clothing, knit, cook, bake, grocery shop, do the laundry, take cars to the repair shop.

I hire out home improvements and repairs; it’s cheaper to get it done by someone that owns the correct tools and knows how to use them

I’m independent. So most of the time I’ll do whatever I’m capable to do. Sometime I pay other for services for something I can’t do myself,or when I don’t feel like to do it.

Lots of time to do it all,and time to enjoy it. Both of us retired early, He protects the hut ,I gather the grub.

I do everything for myself basically and everything for my family. Trash, dishes, repairs that I can do, helping and so on…

I don’t have a car. I rent an apartment so there is no yard to tend. A woman pays me to come and help her clean her house, so I am on the end of people paying me to do stuff they don’t want to do.

I guess occasionally eating out, ordering pizza and taking cabs when it is late at night is the extent of my outsourcing stuff that I can do. A couple times a year when the laundry gets REALLY out of control I take it to the wash and fold.

I had a MerryMaids day today! WooHoo!

I do tons of outdoorsey yard stuff on my 5 acres, soooo….when the balance is too hard to balance I call MerryMaids! God…what a treat…my house is so awesome right now! lolol

I have always tried to do most of my own everything, which is why my plumber loves me. He has had to fix a few of my DIY’s. But many other times I saved tremendous money and gained satisfaction doing it myself.

I enjoy doing everything myself but I usually don’t. I do live in an apartment, with a management company and maintenance, but I’ve had a few opportunities to do things myself and I usually do a competent, yet not great job. So, for the most part, I hire out when it comes to stuff like plumbing and working on my car.

When it comes to routine crap like oil changes, it’s like $13 for an oil change at the car shop across the street, barely more than the cost of the oil, it takes them less than an hour, and I don’t have to dispose of the discharge or climb underneath my car. The same is true for a lot of other car maintenance. I’d rather have my car in more capable hands and pay a little more that have me screw something up.

When it comes to anything technology related, I’m DIY all the way by trade.

I do it all my dear, including the toilets. Fluther often keeps me from my chores though.

Actually, the only thing I don’t do for myself is diagnose extremely bad computer problems. I have a very good friend who is expert and the bad stuff is better left to him.

A couple of guys stopped by last week and asked if they could clean my gutters for $20. They were a couple of old hippies and I just couldn’t say no to them. They needed the cash and it did need to be done. Fun having them around for a minute too.

I do the cooking, cleaning, and yardwork at my house. If there is a problem with the plumbing, I attempt to fix it myself to save money. I also do the basic repairs and tune ups on my dads car.
I am a hands on person, and I like to take things apart to see how they work so I guess you could say that I am a jack of trades in my house.

I usually clean my house, but once or twice a year I like to have a crew come in and do a top to bottom massive clean.

We share the yardwork, I trim bushes and kill weeds. He mows the lawn. We both pick up leaves or blow them into the woods in the fall, he does more of that than I do. Last spring I paid someone to lay down all of the mulch for my yard, and I will do it again this year.

I bring our cars to a mechanic or the dealer for any work they need, except my husband has replaced a couple of lights, and some other little things..

My husband has fixed the plumbing on minor things.

I sew on buttons, but alterations I pay someone.

I run most of the errands, like shopping, dry cleaning, bringing the cars in for service, because I am not working full time right now. If I went back to work, he would split it with me.

I do pretty much do everything for myself.

I live in a co-op. All yard work and building repairs are done by service folk hired by the co-op.

I clean my own place, can change a washer in a leaky faucet and fix minor things. For the big guns like my TV, I call a pro in to fix them.

@everyone, thanks so much for your answers. I asked because I am of that age, I was raised by a mother and father who both grew up poor and during the Depression who both believed, and really couldn’t afford to believe otherwise, that you didn’t hire anyone to do anything that you weren’t perfectly capable of doing for yourself, so I find myself sometimes, congenitally not capable of paying someone do to something that I am not capable of doing myself, but that also means that I am getting to the age when I really might not be capable of doing it for myself. There are so many times now, when I am so grateful to have my parents voices, those old school voices, in the back of my head, keeping me from doing things like signing my life away with credit card debt, etc., but where I also want to say: What the hell is so wrong with hiring a lawn service? Yes, I probably can continue to do it for myself, but I could also drop dead from a heart attack. Do you really want that? And the only reason I’m not hiring a lawn service is because your damn voices are in the back of my head. Is that really what you want?

@lillycoyote I curse those save the money voices every time I pull start my lawn mower- supposed to be one pull, it’s not. I could have bought the key start for more money and I would be a happier women every summer!

@lillycoyote Pay and make your life easier if you can afford it. I find Americans (not sure if you are American) take on too many tasks.

@JLeslie and @faye Thank you so much. I’m having my very own Scarlet O’Hara moment right now. Imagine a 50 year old blond women, about 20 pounds overweight, standing in her back yard, in her own ¼ acre of paradise, in the suburbs of Wilmington, DE, U.S.A., shaking her fist at the sky and saying: With God as my witness, I will never mow my own lawn or rake my own leaves again! It’s March, lawn mowing season is coming and I have had enough! : ) I’m hiring a lawn service and that is that.

@lillycoyote Fantastic!

5 years ago I was the woman standing on the roof of my jetta, cutting off branches of freaking sized horrible maple tree with a chainsaw I had rented. I looked down for most of the cut because I didn’t have safety glasses. And the tree got done and I was fired up and choppin’ and trimmin’ everywhere. I did not want to stop!! Now I hire Rick, the handyman.

Today age 67 I was cutting my ½ acre of hillside rough grass
with my key-start lawnmower ha ha ha ha ha. The key start worked the first six times and then forget it. Well, I’m not too old to pull the cord.
I can’t fix the weed eater. I have to take it to some guy. Then when the cord runs out I’ll have to beg some handy person to put new cord in because I can’t twist the thingy right. I can’t fix any broken machine so when one breaks I just do everything with my bare hands.
I clean out my own gutters, I trim my own hedge, I clean my own house, I cook everything from scratch except ice cream. My carpentry is a riot but I can patch things. I won’t fool around with plumbing (except washers) and I won’t contemplate electricity.
What a loser.

@susanc Good for you. I have trouble with the damn weed eaters too.

I’m pretty useless for yardwork and repairs beyond mending a regular home maintanence.

I’d pay someone to do all the stuff you mentioned.
I save a lot of money by doing my own hair, nails, etc. =)

I forgot shoveling snow yeah I do that too. There’s a foot sitting in my driveway.