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I bought a couch from Homemakers recently as well. I can be at Homemakers from my place in about 10 minutes. I own a truck and I'm 100% capable of carrying heavy things on my own.
I made no hesitation to pay the $75 for delivery. It would be another hour of my time (or close to it) to do that on my own. Not to mention, I would have to have a buddy come help me carry the sections inside and up the stairs just because they will be big enough to be extremely awkward. So that's an hour of their time and an hour of mine.
With things like that, I know what my employer pays me to do my job. So that's my guidelines for what my time is worth. The rest of the cost is easily justified for the convenience of having someone else do the work and worry about logistics as well as saving the time of a friend and the six pack of beer I would need to lure a buddy into helping me move it.
 
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mtowncyclone13 said:
We bought a new couch awhile back and had it shipped from Homemakers in Des Moines to our house for $75. My father-in-law was beside himself that we would "waste" $75 having something delivered when he has a pickup truck that we can use.

I had to explain to my wife (so she could tell her dad) that it was a waste of our time to NOT have it delivered. She agreed but had to convince her dad, who has been known to just go "do things" without asking.

Driving to/from Des Moines from our house would take 3 hours. Waiting for the couch and loading it would take 30 minutes. Unloading it and setting it up would take another 30 minutes. So, there's 4 hours of time, plus gas just to get the couch to my house. Not only that, but since her dad lives in another town we'd either have to drive there first and go to Des Moines with him or he'd have to meet us in Des Moines, drive to our house, and then back to his house after the couch was set up. Now we have gas for two cars and even more driving time.

To me, saving that time/trouble was worth $75. He was furious that we would spend $75 have someone else do something we could do ourselves.

So, CF, when is spending money to save time worth it?
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Guessing FIL is a farmer
 
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In your situation the $75 was well worth it. There is a point where everyone's time is worth a certain price and I would have done the same in your situation. Heck I just paid $30 last month to have a new mattress set delivered and kind of got the same thing from my day who lives 30 minutes away "why didn't you just borrow my truck and pick it up yourself?" Well dad, I would have time spent arranging to get your truck either me going out to get it or you coming into town then I'd have to find another person to help load and unload plus haul it up to the 2nd level of my house because his cranky 72 year old knees surely was not going to do that so between the time and inconveniencing another person the $30 was worth it to not have to lift a finger and just have someone home to open a door for the delivery.

I get that generation, especially the ones that grew up around agriculture like my parents did and were brought up in an era where money was tight and their parents saved every penny they could. I get frustrated all the time with my dad's logic around the farm trying to save himself from a repair or replacing something and trying to get by as long as he can before he has to spend some money on it even if it makes things a pain in the butt in the meantime to deal with. Last summer we had a big project that required cutting some old power/phone poles he got for free from the REC to make some posts. I knew from trimming trees earlier that year his chainsaw was dull as heck and told him he ought to get a new chain before we started that project. "I'm sure I have a sharper chain in the garage somewhere." Nope, that one too was dull and couldn't cut through the pole without a ton of effort so I spent a few hours that day which we had extra help just running into town to get a new chain. It gets even better... I found out it had to be custom made since it was such an old chainsaw so I had to run back to the farm just to get the chainsaw and go back into town so they could make sure they got the right fit when they made the chain. So instead of having 4 guys all working at once he was down 1 for nearly half the day while I ran back and forth just to get a good chain that would cut the posts. Had he just taken care of that in advance like we suggested it would have saved us a bunch of time and hassle. We all got a good laugh when the first cut he made with the new chain ripped through the pole like butter "should have just bought a new chain like we told you before, look how easy that cut" we all made sure to remind him what we had told him!
 
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jsb said:
The real question is why are you telling him what you paid? If he asked, I’d lie and say it was free delivery.

Everyone has different ideas when it comes to that sort of stuff. I like to pay for convience. Some don’t.
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Because he asked. We've since learned to lie in situations like this because he knows "the best way" to do everything about everything.
 
Really depends on the cost and event as many of use would rather have more control over this kind of thing, like the way it's loaded, carried etc. although I suppose if it were damaged, hopefully there's a warranty or something.

But for that cost, there's usually something I could cut out of my normal budget for like two weeks (eating out at a restaurant, etc.) to make up for it.

Also a 3 hour trip is probably at least $20 worth of gas as it is, then you may stop and eat some place at some point or something so you may have spent something close to $75 as it is, just over 3 hours of time.
 
mtowncyclone13 said:
Because he asked. We've since learned to lie in situations like this because he knows "the best way" to do everything about everything.
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I hate when older people pull that shtick. My parents do that **** all the time and get pissed when I am not thankful for their sage wisdom. It seems like it is a boomer thing to some degree (no meant offense to the boomers on this board).
 
I'm very much in the camp of spending some money to save time. I have a relatively stressful job and 4 kids, so anywhere I can create some relaxation time I'm for it. We recently hired a cleaning company to clean our house once a month. That's been awesome. Sure, I could save the money and clean my own house, but it saves me a bunch of time and they do a great job.
 
mtowncyclone13 said:
He is not a farmer, but I am curious - why is this?
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I remember the farm crisis of the '80s too well. My father and especially my mother were good money managers. If we could put a used tire on the field cultivator instead of buying a new one we did. As much grain was stored on farm as possible to not pay storage even if it meant having to work around wagons full of grain.

But we had neighbors and friends that didn't have that skill. Everything they bought was using the bank's money because they had none of their own.

In another thread, the one about the price of weddings, made me think of this when it was mentioned the amount of credit card debt that there is because of lavish one days events.
 
Pretty simple math to determine the opportunity cost. How much do you make per hour? Multiply that times the number of hours ******* around w/ whatever the task is. If it's more than what you'd pay somebody then pay somebody. If it's borderline-equal, then pay somebody.

If I can pay a kid $40 to mow my yard I'm helping the kid and helping myself.
 
Sometimes parents just want to feel needed. I noticed this in my dad especially after he retired. He’d have worked til the day he died if his body hadn’t given out on him. I tried to come up with small things he could do for me to help him feel needed, pick up my mail for me, check on my house when I was out of town, etc. At the time I considered it kind of a pain trying to come up with things, now I wish he was still around and I still had to do that.
 
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mtowncyclone13 said:
I changed the title because the previous one was obvious. I did a poor job of explaining it, but I meant time doing chores/tasks vs paying someone to do it.
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I had a situation where my check engine light came on. I asked the shop how much to get it checked and he said $100...I said **** that and did some research.

I bought a code reader for $20-$25 from Walmart. Used that on my car. The codes matched up with the issue. My gas cap would not stay tight and my car thought there was a leak. I went to O’Reilleys, bought a cap for $20, put it on my car, then used the code reader to remove the codes.

Having a mechanic do it, $100+.
Me - $40

My main point is to do some research on things. Sometimes you’ll save a bunch of money if you can do it yourself.
 
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