Do you spend your weekends working on projects around the house? Or trying to get someone else in your house to do them? 😉 Some people really enjoy doing handy work (and others of us don’t). But either way it can be a major time investment in our already busy and over-scheduled lives. Here’s a suggestion that seem obvious but it’s often overlooked: Outsource.
We tend to think about calling in the professionals for the “big stuff” like adding a deck or putting in a new floor. But it’s that little stuff that adds up quickly and can be very time-consuming. I keep a running list of the minor, but needed, things in our house like:
- Caulking outside the front door
- Paint touch ups throughout the house
- Change handles on kitchen cabinets
- Hang up curtain rod in guest room and so on….
And about three times a year I call in a handy man to take care of my “honey do” list. And guess what? What would take us about 6 weekends to do, takes our handy man about 1-2 full days. Between family, social and work commitments we rarely have the time (or desire) to set aside an entire weekend to get these projects done. Plus, as we’re not the handiest of folks, we end up doing a lot of things twice (at least!) and wasting plenty of time.
And most importantly, getting help for just a day or two is a really good value. You can usually find a reliable and honest handyman through friend referrals or get references from someone on Craigslist. You may be able to negotiate a daily rate or even a reasonable hourly rate. A couple to a few hundred dollars seems like a great value when you consider that:
- Your list is complete!
- You get several weekends back to yourself and/or your family
- You’re not nagging anyone else in your home
- You’ve saved yourself a lot of time and energy and likely, stress
