I Pay for These 3 Services That Free Up My Time. Here's Why They're Worth It
There are certain expenses in life we all pay for due to the convenience involved. When we don't want to walk home or wait for the bus after a long night out, we hail a ride. When we're too tired to cook, we summon delivery or order takeout.
Sometimes, these conveniences are just that -- things that make our life easier. But as a self-employed writer, there are three expenses I spend money on for the express purpose of freeing up my time so I can work. And believe me when I say that they're all more than worth the money.
1. A house cleaner
It takes my house cleaner about six hours to make my home look spotless (or as spotless as it's going to get when you live with kids and a giant dog). But since this is what she does for a living and is therefore efficient at it, I'm pretty sure that if I were to do the equivalent amount of cleaning, it would take me more like eight hours.
That's an entire day of work. By contrast, the amount I pay my house cleaner is roughly the equivalent of what I can earn in an hour. Because of this, keeping her on board is an easy call -- even aside from the fact that I don't particularly like to clean.
2. A lawn mowing service
Mowing the lawn used to take my husband 90 minutes, which means I'd probably be looking at two hours -- and that's with a decent lawn mower. Our local gardening service, on the other hand, charges $900 for 30 weeks of lawn maintenance when you pay upfront, so that amounts to just $30 a cut.
Since I can earn well more than $30 in the course of two hours, it makes sense to pay for this service rather than spend the time. Also, allergic-to-everything me probably wouldn't do well breathing in grass particles for hours at a time. While I might save myself $30 a week, I'd also likely have to spend that much on additional allergy meds.
3. An accountant
I have an accountant who does more than just help me prepare my taxes each year. He also manages my books and makes sure things are running smoothly financially.
While I definitely need the tax help, some of the other work he does is work I could possibly do myself. But the way I see it, my job is to write, not to do accounting. And my accountant knows more about accounting and is more efficient at it than I am. So even though his fees add to my expenses (and those hinge on different factors, so it's hard to put down a single cost), they're worth paying.
When you're self-employed like I am, every minute you spend handling a household or administrative task is a minute you're not working and earning money. So if you work for yourself, you may want to think about ways you can free up hours during the week to work. And if your earnings potential outweighs the expenses you'll face, then it's probably worth it.
Even if you're not self-employed, if you're in a good place financially, it's also OK to sometimes spend money to free up hours in your schedule for downtime. If you hate mowing the lawn and paying for the service fit into your budget, why not reclaim your weekends when you work hard and deserve that break?
Every time you spend money, it comes at the cost of something else. But you may find that paying for the gift of time is possibly the best use of your money.
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I Pay for These 3 Services That Free Up My Time. Here's Why They're Worth It was originally published by The Motley Fool
