One of my pet peeves is, “You have to consider the value of your time when you make something yourself.” I’m sure that idea was originally pushed by some marketing executive who wanted to sell something. The simple fact is that unless someone would be paying you right this minute to do something, your time is worth exactly $0. Your time is NOT worth a penny more than what someone is willing to pay you.
It is hard to believe that I have seen people argue that fast food is a good deal financially because it costs less to buy it than to cook a similar meal yourself when you figure in the value of your time. But let’s get serious here — unless you are telling your boss, “I’ll be leaving work thirty minutes early today so I can cook dinner for myself, and you can dock my pay,” it does not cost you a penny to make dinner. In fact, let’s turn this around.
You can easily cook a delicious, healthy dinner for four people for less than $10, whether you want to make homemade pizzas or simply roast a chicken, bake potatoes, and steam some vegetables. To roast a chicken, just put it in a baking pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and if you want to get fancy, use garlic salt and a little rosemary, which will take you less than five minutes. Stick it in the oven. Put the potatoes in a pan and stick them in the oven. Leave the kitchen to do something else for 45 minutes. Come back and check on the potatoes and chicken. If they are done or almost done, put the vegetables in a steamer. Frozen vegetables are often less expensive than fresh, and if you really don’t have the two minutes it takes to rinse and chop up broccoli, take 30 seconds to rip open a bag of frozen. Set the table while the vegetables are steaming. If you want some gravy, you can make that from scratch in about five minutes.
It will take you fifteen to twenty minutes to cook this meal. Clean up will take you less than another fifteen minutes, totaling thirty or thirty-five minutes of your time. If you had gone out to dinner at a restaurant, four chicken entrees would have been about $15 each for a total of $60. After you add in drinks and a tip, the check is pushing $80. By cooking at home, you have just saved $70 for 30 minutes of your time, which comes out to $140 an hour. What else could you have done in 30 minutes to earn $70? And if you had gone to a restaurant, you would have probably spent more than a total of thirty minutes driving to the restaurant, waiting to get seated, waiting to order, waiting for your food, then waiting for the check, and then driving home — and no one would have paid you for all that time you were driving and waiting!
Ten years ago, we spent $14,000 on food in one year for our family of five! A year later that number had fallen to only $6,000 because we almost completely stopped going out to eat when we were at home. In other words, we would only eat out if we were in the midst of running errands or traveling. If we were home, we didn’t all pile into the car to go somewhere for dinner. That was also when it hit me that eating out also takes a lot of time! From the time we left until the time we walked back into the door, it was usually two hours or more. We can cook, eat, and clean up at home in far less time. And yes, we do still go out to eat to celebrate a special occasion sometimes, but it is usually coupled with errands or a trip to the theater in Chicago.
And this can be extended well beyond food. My biggest coup was when we were building our house. I sat down with a kitchen designer at a national chain home improvement store, and kitchen cabinets would have totaled $9,000. After I recovered from the sticker shock, I recalled seeing a factory outlet for kitchen cabinets in Arthur, IL. My daughter and I took measurements of our kitchen and went to the store, which was a huge warehouse with cabinets organized by finish and color. We spent about four hours going through the stacks of cabinets, and finally found a style that had every size that we needed. The total bill was less than $3,000, saving us $6,000 for four hours of work!
So, the next time you catch yourself thinking that something is not worth your time to do, stop and do the math. You will probably discover that you will actually save quite a bit of money by doing it yourself!
That's what we did with our cabinets. Bought unfinished and stained them ourselves. We installed them, too like you did.
We still need to do the top cabinets, but we'll do them one by one like we did the bottom ones.
When you're on a budget, that's what you do. :o)
Have a wonderful Friday!
I totally agree with this. I feel like I'm being paid for my time based on how much I can save by doing it myself. And I have often talked myself out of "just going out to eat" because it would actually take longer to eat out than to make food at home. -Jamie
I love your stories. It's amazing the money you can save with a little time and effort. It's typically worthwhile.
When I was a kid, my dad worked as a delivery driver for a company that sold unfinished furniture. He used his employee discount and bought several items of quality, solid wood furniture for me, and finished the wood himself. Normally, it would be tough to afford an oak roll-top desk, a gigantic pine dresser, and a wood and glass wall-mounted curio cabinet on a delivery driver's salary. But he did it by putting forth some effort, and now, almost 20 years later, those pieces are treasured by me. 🙂
My husband and I are also big fans of eating at home. For one, it's so much healthier for us, and two, you are right, we save more time eating at home then traveling to eat. We also live out in the sticks a bit, and so it takes us even longer to get there.
I must also confess that there is nothing more depressing than going out for dinner and being disappointed whether its the meal or the service. It saddens me to see the bill and think what I could have made at home. I know we are all different, and some love going out to eat, but I love cooking, and love being home! Thanks for the great post!
I have to admit that one of the things that turned me around on eating out were the times I was disappointed. It was very depressing to see the bill and realize I could have made a much better dinner at home for 1/5 as much money!