Death of the generalist

[iijakii]

Yup. More internet, less TV. Same difference.

 

[CGVT]

Time is precious. Even though I can change my oil and my brakes and do many other projects on my car, I don't enjoy working on a car. I pay somebody to do the stuff that I don't like to do. I will change air filters, wiper blades, bulbs etc, but leave most mechanical work to, you know, a mechanic.

I do projects that will save me a significant amount of money and projects that I enjoy, but I always weigh my time vs money vs expected and required quality of the project.

I think if I had enough money, I would hire just about every home maintenance project out and only do stuff that I like to do, and I damn sure wouldn't feel guilty about it.

Since I don't have that much money, I have to do some things that I would rather not. I guess that is life...

 

[mattd2]

Time is precious. Even though I can change my oil and my brakes and do many other projects on my car, I don't enjoy working on a car...

I do change the oil / brakes / etc. on my cars because it saves me time! oil change = 1 hour all up and I'd burn that just driving back and forth from the mechanics

 

[Kampenken]

Hmmm, was just thinking about the DIY and save money aspects along with when they are projects I like to do. I'm fortunate to have money to pay for others to do things, but I still like to do them. I tore up my backyard with a backhoe (never ran one before) to put in an extensive French drain system. A lot of fun! I did run out of time and ended up moving about 10 truck loads of soil to a landscape yard (he took it for free!). Hard work with the wheelbarrow. Got the yard back together and reseeded and it's great now, very satisfying DIY! That is priceless!

Last year we got a landscaper to do the entire back yard planting and design. With lighting. It came out great, but I can't help but think how much cheaper I could've done it and getting the satisfaction. Though my design wouldn't have been nearly as good.

So art is worth paying for, my replumbing the basement with PEX? No, I do that, neatly, and WAY cheaper!

 

[Hamaki]

Not the consummate DIY guy but I do what I feel comfortable tackling that I figure will save money or be satisfying. Something I've heard a few times, and it's never made sense to me, is that you don't save money cooking at home compared to eating out. Has anyone else heard that or have an idea how it is possible?

 

[Stillraining]

Not the consummate DIY guy but I do what I feel comfortable tackling that I figure will save money or be satisfying. Something I've heard a few times, and it's never made sense to me, is that you don't save money cooking at home compared to eating out. Has anyone else heard that or have an idea how it is possible?

Dollar menu at McDonalds.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Something I've heard a few times, and it's never made sense to me, is that you don't save money cooking at home compared to eating out. Has anyone else heard that or have an idea how it is possible?

All depends what you're cooking vs. What you order in a restaurant. It's WAY easy to spend boatloads of money cooking at home. And if you're cooking things that require small amounts of specialized vegetables, herbs, or spices, the bill can grow FAST with stuff that will go bad before your next meal, so there can be tons of waste. Restaurants can not only buy those items in bulk, but they use them up quickly enough to avoid waste and spoilage.

As a general rule, though, cooking an equivalent meal at home to what you buy in a restaurant should be cheaper at home. The issue is when we want filet mignon at home to be cheaper than a burger and fries at the restaurant.

 

[Hamaki]

All depends what you're cooking vs. What you order in a restaurant. It's WAY easy to spend boatloads of money cooking at home. And if you're cooking things that require small amounts of specialized vegetables, herbs, or spices, the bill can grow FAST with stuff that will go bad before your next meal, so there can be tons of waste. Restaurants can not only buy those items in bulk, but they use them up quickly enough to avoid waste and spoilage.

As a general rule, though, cooking an equivalent meal at home to what you buy in a restaurant should be cheaper at home. The issue is when we want filet mignon at home to be cheaper than a burger and fries at the restaurant.

Yeah, I was thinking comparing costs on like items. Seems like most restaurants charge 2X to 4X what home cooked costs for the same meal so I never understood the claim. Ingredients for my lunch today at home cost just about $2.25; the same would have totaled about $7.50 at a fast food place, more at a sit down. I agree on your point about specialized ingredients that we won't use up but we don't often eat anything likely fit to into that category.

I've had little or no success matching the quality of some of the meals I've had out so I'm willing to pay for that. Last weekend we went to a pub in the SF bay area. The food & drinks were not spectacular; we could have done as well or better at home. We would not have been able to match the music & atmosphere, however, so it was worth the extra expense for entertainment value.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Yeah, I was thinking comparing costs on like items. Seems like most restaurants charge 2X to 4X what home cooked costs for the same meal so I never understood the claim. Ingredients for my lunch today at home cost just about $2.25; the same would have totaled about $7.50 at a fast food place, more at a sit down. I agree on your point about specialized ingredients that we won't use up but we don't often eat anything likely fit to into that category.

Yeah, and I'm not often going crazy with ethnic food recipes that require all sorts of crazy spices. But I just got up to look at the fridge, and I saw a couple things:

1) An almost full package of fresh tarragon that I needed for corn on the cob. It'll probably go bad before I make corn on the cob again, so we're talking 85-90% waste.
2) A little tub of salsa that my wife needed for tonight's dinner. It's 85% full because it was basically a flavoring/garnish. We don't gorge on chips and salsa in our house, so that'll probably be thrown away before it's used again.
3) Two nearly-full tubs of sour cream, likely because one is probably already ready to be thrown out and the other needed to be bought for a recipe.
4) A 1/2 full (small) package of pizza sauce, which has been in there for weeks. I do pizza on the grill, but it's been a few weeks, so I'll probably need to toss that before the next time I do pizza.

Then there's commonly waste of leftovers when nobody gets around to eating them.

Essentially, when you don't have economies of scale to buy ingredients in bulk, and you have a high wastage factor, your cost per meal becomes artificially high. Not from the cost of what you're *eating*, but the cost of your grocery bill which includes the stuff that gets thrown out.

With good menu planning and consistency of using ingredients that can be reused frequently, this can be minimized. But then you run the risk of falling into a rut and always cooking the same things over and over, which my wife tries to avoid in our house...

It's kind of like homebrew. Homebrew can be a lot cheaper than commercial beer. It's especially so if you're buying sacks of grain, hops by the pound, and re-using yeast from batch to batch. But if every recipe is a one-off needing a special yeast, a bunch of specialty grain (or not using the same base malts consistently), and you're buying hops by the ounce, it gets a LOT more expensive. When you then see a case of Goose Island IPA at Costco for like $21.99, it's hard to say that doing it at home is much cheaper.

I've had little or no success matching the quality of some of the meals I've had out so I'm willing to pay for that. Last weekend we went to a pub in the SF bay area. The food & drinks were not spectacular; we could have done as well or better at home. We would not have been able to match the music & atmosphere, however, so it was worth the extra expense for entertainment value.

Drinks, of course, are killer. It's always way cheaper to drink at home...

But you do bring up an interesting point re: SF Bay Area... How much of the square footage in your house is devoted to kitchen and dining area? Are you factoring the rent/mortgage for that square footage into your cooking cost? Obviously it's a specious argument because nobody buys a house without a kitchen, so those people who complain about the cost of cooking at home don't realize the benefit of using that square footage for other things. But it does bring up an interesting thought exercise... Without a kitchen and dining room, that square footage would EASILY equal an extra bedroom. What's an extra bedroom worth in the SF Bay Area when it comes to house costs and/or rent?

 

[Billy-Klubb]

there are a lot of things I do myself. most of the time I feel very confident taking on projects. there's some things I don't want to do and will gladly pay a professional for. our bathroom for instance. in the past I have replaced a tub & shower surround, but we payed someone else to do this in this house. I could have researched how to tile the bathroom, but I had absolutely no desire and payed someone to tile. and he did a great job. when the time comes, I will rebuild the back deck myself. I change oil, replace starters/alternators, replace vacuum lines, flush the cooling system, etc... when I have the time and it's not freezing out. if I don't have the time or it's to damn cold out, I will pay someone.

when I was building methane vacuum units and pipe welding, it drove me nuts when our customers would try to DIY when something went wrong in the field. it only cause more work for us in the long run. I don't know how many times I had to go into the field to repair 5-10 year old equipment that had been half-assed repaired over and over again. 98% of the time it would have been cheaper and more effective to have us do it right the first time.

some things I will do, some things I won't. not because I can't but because I want it done right the first time and I don't have time to flocc around with it to make it right.

 

[kaffeenjunkie]

1) An almost full package of fresh tarragon that I needed for corn on the cob. It'll probably go bad before I make corn on the cob again, so we're talking 85-90% waste.
2) A little tub of salsa that my wife needed for tonight's dinner. It's 85% full because it was basically a flavoring/garnish. We don't gorge on chips and salsa in our house, so that'll probably be thrown away before it's used again.
3) Two nearly-full tubs of sour cream, likely because one is probably already ready to be thrown out and the other needed to be bought for a recipe.
4) A 1/2 full (small) package of pizza sauce, which has been in there for weeks. I do pizza on the grill, but it's been a few weeks, so I'll probably need to toss that before the next time I d

1) An almost full package of fresh tarragon that I needed for corn on the cob. It'll probably go bad before I make corn on the cob again, so we're talking 85-90% waste.
2) A little tub of salsa that my wife needed for tonight's dinner. It's 85% full because it was basically a flavoring/garnish. We don't gorge on chips and salsa in our house, so that'll probably be thrown away before it's used again.
3) Two nearly-full tubs of sour cream, likely because one is probably already ready to be thrown out and the other needed to be bought for a recipe.
4) A 1/2 full (small) package of pizza sauce, which has been in there for weeks. I do pizza on the grill, but it's been a few weeks, so I'll probably need to toss that before the next time I do pizza

Tarragon could be hung up by the stems to dry and used the next time you make corn. Tarragon is also excellent on carrots and can be used in soups.

Sour cream is also excellent in cream soups and in mashed potatoes.

On Sunday morning make chilaquiles or huevos rancheros for brunch and you could use up the sour cream and salsa.

Pizza sauce could be frozen and used the next time you make grilled pizza. At this point, please bring it to 185f before freezing, to kill listeria bacteria.

It's not that restaurants buy ingredients in bulk that makes it cheaper, it knowing how to utilize ingredients across the board. Quite honestly, the prices aren't all that much cheaper, as you imagine. It costs money to have things delivered to your door. You can get a number of things cheaper at the grocery store, SAMs or Costco but time is money and I have little of it.

On the premise of the thread. I fix what I can, if I have the time.
When we first opened our little cafe twenty plus years ago, the first thing I bought was a small tool kit. My wife laughed at me when I told her I was going to save us some money. She doesn't laugh anymore.
Even so, there are things I still prefer to leave to pro's. I am however very,very picky about who I let do work for me.

 

[mongoose33]

Not the consummate DIY guy but I do what I feel comfortable tackling that I figure will save money or be satisfying. Something I've heard a few times, and it's never made sense to me, is that you don't save money cooking at home compared to eating out. Has anyone else heard that or have an idea how it is possible?

I'd love to see the original.

You don't save money eating a nice meal out as compared to cooking it yourself. There are formulas for how much a restaurant should charge for its food, in order to make a reasonable profit.

[this from memory] For breakfast, food cost should be 25-33 percent of the total price; lunch and dinner are in the 40-50 percent range. So it will be 1/2 to 1/4 as much in cost to cook at home as to eat out. Further, you don't pay sales tax on meals you cook at home, as is the case when you dine out.

Whomever is promulgating the idea that it's cheaper to eat out than cook at home is either deranged, doing public relations for the restaurant industry, or is trying to convince their significant other that not doing dishes is a good thing.

 

[Hamaki]

I'd love to see the original.

I don't recall reading this anywhere, I've heard it said. The only person I specifically recall saying it is a deceased relative so I can't question him on it. The more I think about the food waste thing the more I think I'm underestimating costs for DIY but there's no way we waste 50 - 75%, particularly when it comes to expensive ingredients.

When figuring costs I'd never counted the cost of the kitchen & dining areas. Since I live pretty far from the bay area, housing costs are less but I'd say the cash value of the square footage is maybe $30,000. The cost per meal over 50 years is roughly 55 cents. Yesterday's lunch for one cost $2.80 rather than $2.25. Assuming a food waste factor of 10% (which intuitively sounds about right for our situation) pushes this over $3.00. Had I built without a kitchen or dining area, however, I think I'd have a hard time ever selling it if I need to.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

It's not that restaurants buy ingredients in bulk that makes it cheaper, it knowing how to utilize ingredients across the board. Quite honestly, the prices aren't all that much cheaper, as you imagine. It costs money to have things delivered to your door. You can get a number of things cheaper at the grocery store, SAMs or Costco but time is money and I have little of it.

Unless things have changed significantly from my years managing restaurants, this is certainly not true higher quality meats, fish, cheese, etc. Staples and dry goods I concur. Aged beef, quality tuna, monk fish, aged Stilton, etc...the differences were astounding.

Another area we saved money were obvious from bulk production methods using raw ingredients instead of buying finished or mostly finished product (the salsa example). This is only viable when prep labor is quite cheap and veggies are in season.

Overall, if you can buy what you need and use what you buy, cooking at home is vastly cheaper. That said, much like anything DIY, your time has value. If you put a price on it based on what you can't do (brew more beer) as a result of cooking dinner 4-nights a week, eating out has a potential value proposition.

Really want to make doing almost ANYTHING but working look like a low value proposition, apply the "total compensation" value (assuming your company hands that out) as an hourly to any hobby...each six pack in my case would be like $28. Thankfully, I mortgaged enough of my life working so I can now leverage the other 128 hours/week not worrying about that part of it.

 

[kaffeenjunkie]

Another area we saved money were obvious from bulk production methods using raw ingredients instead of buying finished or mostly finished product (the salsa example). This is only viable when prep labor is quite cheap and veggies are in season.

Overall, if you can buy what you need and use what you buy, cooking at home is vastly cheaper. That said, much like anything DIY, your time has value. If you put a price on it based on what you can't do (brew more beer) as a result of cooking dinner 4-nights a week, eating out has a potential value proposition.

Thanks for the advice. Owner/chef for 23 and in in the biz for over 40. :smack: We do most everything from scratch. Although the ingredient cost is less, your labor cost is always higher. It's a trade off and a fine line. Good operators try to keep the biggest costs of food and labor in combination below 65% I am a pretty good operator.

Like anything DIY, plumbing, electricity, carpentry; cooking at home is vastly cheaper because your not paying for someone else's labor, knowledge, rent, electricity, insurance, liability, administrative costs, etc. etc.

Like Onkel Udo states
You have to factor in your time.
What do you value your time at? If you put a dollar value on your time, how much is it?
How much do you value your free time?
If you could be doing something your truly enjoy, how much is that worth to you?

What do you consider work to be?
I know plenty of people who work harder in their "off time" for free than they do for what they actually get paid for.
Those folks usually wonder why they aren't making any money or often talk about how their job sucks. Jut an observation.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Like Onkel Udo states
You have to factor in your time.
What do you value your time at? If you put a dollar value on your time, how much is it?
How much do you value your free time?
If you could be doing something your truly enjoy, how much is that worth to you?

What do you consider work to be?
I know plenty of people who work harder in their "off time" for free than they do for what they actually get paid for.
Those folks usually wonder why they aren't making any money or often talk about how their job sucks. Jut an observation.

As you might have guessed, I am now a numbers guy by trade. I manage (or actually, help others manage) the money and schedule for millions of dollars of projects a year. I usually am the "voice of reason" when folks get bogged down in one or the other because they are so intricately intertwined that you cannot separate them. If x project saves $500K by using a lower cost contractor that takes 6 months longer...how much did you lose to fixed cost and lost production? This can apply to everyday life just as well but if you do not take into account the intangibles like satisfaction of a job well done or enjoyment of the task itself, the numbers almost never work out.

I spent much of my life working for the paycheck as I correctly assumed it would not have to always be that way. Now that I find myself in a job that pays well that I can execute in my sleep, I am one of those guys that works for the weekend because I have so many things to do (hobbies for the most part) that are so much more interesting than my job. It does not stop me from occasionally obsessing about the cost benefit analysis (whether to buy a newer truck for towing or put more into my aging one) but those instances are more and more rare.

 

[Homercidal]

The savings in cooking at home will vary depending on the scale of the restaurant you go to and your own shopping habits. There is a huge difference between hitting the nearby Ponderosa for an AYCE buffet and the upscale restaurant downtown.

There can also be a huge difference in the price of food you buy depending on where and how you buy it.

Home canning and processing does take time though. You can save quite a bit if you are willing to buy large packs of meat on sale and freeze it, or buy a whole hog from a slaughterhouse. The pork steak we got from the slaughterhouse last year was so good I'd choose it over almost any of the cuts of beef from the store.

 

[Hophunter]

The way I see it is that there are many types of individuals in the world. Some people are simply more inclined towards being handy and some not so much. I do as much as I can generally, plumbing, electric, a little carpentry, etc. Although, with two young ones now, the last few projects, basement and garage, I hired out due to someone else being able to finish the project in weeks vs months for me. On the other hand, my FIL can barely screw in a light bulb. Could he learn to be handy? That's a big maybe. He is just mechanically declined. His dad however was very handy. I just think that some people are incapable and then of course some just shouldn't. I have found some truly dangerous DIY work while rehabbing my house.

 

[Hamaki]

Like Onkel Udo states
You have to factor in your time.
What do you value your time at? If you put a dollar value on your time, how much is it?
How much do you value your free time?
If you could be doing something your truly enjoy, how much is that worth to you?

What do you consider work to be?
I know plenty of people who work harder in their "off time" for free than they do for what they actually get paid for.
Those folks usually wonder why they aren't making any money or often talk about how their job sucks. Jut an observation.

If I need to place a dollar value on the time spent cooking at home shouldn't I do the same for time spent eating out? That's often just as much time if not more than DIY. I'm not sure I agree with the "time is money" aspect in this case.

I do ask myself "where is my time best spent?" when it comes to DIY in general. Since I'm a desk jockey I get paid to use my mind & my patience rather than my back. I work harder (physically and sometimes mentally) in my off time because I have to take care of things myself or hire it done. Many factors other than the value of my time come into play when deciding whether to hire it out including the degree of satisfaction from DIY, difficulty/skill required to do an adequate job, need for specialized equipment, learning curve, and total time required.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

I just think that some people are incapable and then of course some just shouldn't. I have found some truly dangerous DIY work while rehabbing my house.

I found some of that dangerous work in my first house.

I found more in my current house but it was obviously executed by professionals which is much more frightening (plumbers...the framers' natural enemy). Sure, none of it could be done today as it would be caught in inspections but...My sister's first new house was in a moderately upscale gated community in San Antonio built when they could not put houses up fast enough. I visited a year later and was astounded to find that two of closets were framed "backward" (door in the obviously wrong location) and the contractor just changed the door swing to make them work...sort of.

I still believe if you can follow a recipe, these days you can do most DIY. The question (other than time or desire) is can you follow the recipe to the "T" without missing steps or getting them out of order. Sure, it is much harder to follow the recipe when you find that the mixer is suddenly broken and you bought all-purpose flour instead of cake flour, but you normally can overcome either with enough persistence.

 

[Hophunter]

Sure, none of it could be done today as it would be caught in inspections

Around here, the twp hires an inspection company and the inspection on our geothermal install was a joke. Inspector missed several violations that I fixed later. Spent less than two minutes glancing at the work.

I tore down drywall in the basement (prior to refinishing) to find wires twisted and taped. No boxes, no wire nuts. Yikes. One box had 12 wires going into it and it was a shallow 4x4. 8 wires twisted together with one red wire nut. Truly scary stuff.

Back on topic sort of, I won't change my own oil or finish large drywall projects. Not worth my time or aggravation.