Worth the Cost – Part 3
Different parts of the country are more apt to be DIY than others, simply out of necessity. As Meredith pointed out in a comment, the questions in Part 2 “presume that one has the money to spend on hiring professionals in the first place.” Absolutely. That’s why everyone has to carefully evaluate the choices they make. What’s frugal for some is not frugal, but impossible, for others. It can also be a motivator.
Frugal, i.e. prudently sparing or saving, truly does come in all shapes and sizes. We need to be mindful not to envy the Starbucks junkies who are being frugal by skipping their daily habit (even if it sounds almost hypocritical to call them frugal.) We also need to be careful not to presume that everyone has the same frugal choices we do. Rich folks can be frugal and poor folks aren’t necessarily frugal. You sift the frugal from the cheap by examining principles, mindset and lifestyle.
For those of us who are fortunate enough to have options, sometimes it’s confusing to know what route is best to choose. Rich and I use this as a rule of thumb: Unless you have lots of time and little money, if you are spending hours doing something that only saves very little over ready made or contracted, it’s best to skip DIY unless you really enjoy doing it. If you can do it quicker, cheaper and better, DIY is unquestionably the way to go!
I have two specific examples from my life that illustrate choices.
During most of my childhood, my folks kept one milking Jersey (the jury is still as to whether it was prudent or not) who gave 5 gallons of milk each day. To keep from being drown in milk, Dad and I drove 1000 miles to take a cheesemaking workshop. For weeks and weeks afterwards, I spent 4 hours each weekday morning making cheese.
We were excited because the milk wasn’t going to waste and the cheese was going to be healthy. When my first batch came of age two months later, we found out the cheese was not the gouda we were expecting. It was just nasty. Think limburger gone bad, really bad. I had about 40 – 4 pound rolls of THE nastiest cheese you’ve ever smelled or tasted. But hey, it was healthy!
We found out after the fact that you can’t use raw milk to make cheese or it ends up being what we had. Needless to say, I lost my desire to spend hours making a product I couldn’t stand to be in the room with. I ended up giving most of it to an old German fellow we knew, whose mother “in the old country” made stuff just like it. He adored it. Bleh. So much for frugal. For the work involved and the final product, it was cheaper to skip the cat food and feed the milk to our fast growing crowd of barn cats – like we had been doing – and buy natural cheese from the food co-op.
On the other end of the spectrum, sewing dresses for my daughter is worth the DIY effort. With secondhand clothing in abundance for a fraction of the cost of new, some might think I’m crazy to waste my time. Without knowing my reasons, you might think that too. Sewing dresses wasn’t always the norm around here. Let’s take a look…
The day after our daughter was born, Rich went out and hit a huge rummage sale snatching up every little pink thing with lace that he could find. (It was really cute!) When she was about 9 months old, I found several dozen $2 denim jumpers in multiple sizes on clearance at Wal-Mart. Ariana wore them until she was about 18 months. At that time, she entered full tilt toddlerhood and sprouted legs. New or second hand, I couldn’t find anything to fit her that wasn’t 3 sizes too big somewhere and too small elsewhere. She’s continued to carry that trend up to the present. Enter stage right, years of sewing experience.
With 20 years of sewing experience I can whip out a simply embellished dress in about 2 hours. No dress has ever taken me more than 3 hours – mistakes included. With my tricks for making them last, Miss Ana will wear a dress about 2 ½ or 3 years. This spring she finally outgrew the first batch I made her when she was 18 months. She turned 4 in April. Not bad for a $2 dress that took less time to make than a trip to the local thrift store.
Here’s my frugal breakdown:
I will spend about 11 hours and between $25-$30 making 5 dresses for Ariana that she will wear for more than 2 years. Considering 2 weeks of making supper will take more time than that and be gone in way less, I think it’s a pretty good investment for the time spent.
For $30, you can purchase about a dozen secondhand dresses for $2 or $3 each. Granted, you can hit the jackpot with a yard sale or two, but that hasn’t been my experience. You can get double that number if you aren’t choosey about style and condition or maybe half that amount if you are. Remember, I’m getting new, custom fit dresses for my time and price.
If you have to make 3 trips to the store at 30 minutes each direction, that’s 3 hours. It will generally take a minimum of an hour each time you visit to sort through the stock and find the clothes you want. With the ideal circumstances, over the course of two years, your total hours are about 6 and you’ve spent $30 for dresses. Did you remember to factor in the $20 cost for the drive? If you only make one trip and buy all the dresses, you end up with 2 years worth of storage costs at $100 a square foot, or more, depending on what you paid for your house or rent.
In my experience, thrift store shopping isn’t always one trip easy. There are times when I don’t find what I’m looking for second hand. I either have to go back home and wait or head to a different store, which takes more time and more money. Depending on the urgency and situation, I might have to buy new. Add another drive or taking longer to go through the clothes than you planned and you can easily add another 4 hours to that 6 hour ideal time total. That’s not even taking into account bringing the clothes home and washing them or the stress of anticipation or frustration of coming up empty handed.
The bottom line: If all goes well for you, you’re getting the better deal. If you get hiccups in finding what you need, I’ve got you beat and enjoyed myself to boot. Which way is most frugal? Neither. I would rather spend a couple hours with kids laughing at my feet than puttering up the road, ticking off 50¢ a mile in vehicle costs. Others don’t feel that way.
Whether you DIY or not, you need to consider what’s worth the cost to you. DIY frugal is a balance of determining when it’s better to choose less expensive and add elbow grease or pay more and get more free time. However you choose to spend or save, make sure you factor in all the costs. How much does something costs to maintain? How much time will it save or cost you? How long will it take to recoup your money? Only you can determine what’s best for your family.
What frugal thing do you do that every one else thinks is crazy?
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5 Responses to “Worth the Cost – Part 3”
November 7th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I just wanted to let you know that yes, you can make raw milk cheeses and they are marketed through various channels, including food coops, etc. Just google raw milk cheese and you should come up with some hits.
I am not arguing with the point that you are making. Somethings are worth doing sometimes and somethings are not. Just wanted to say that it is being done and is some of the best cheese I have ever eaten. It must be aged at least 60 days.
Loving your blog.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
I do a lot of things that raise eyebrows around here, but mostly that’s because this is a very wealthy area. Just to name a few (and I am serious that 99% of the people I meet and know do NOT do these):
*Bake bread. (I have access to bulk ingredients, making it 2 loaves homemade for the price of 1 storebought.)
*Bake. Period. Yes, most people I know buy premade frozen pies for $6-8, even the easy pies (like banana cream).
*Cook most meals from scratch.
*Buy most of my kids’ toys (and gifts) at thrift stores.
But if I had to choose the one that raises the most eyebrows, it would be my “thrift store habit”. Most people I know would nearly die if they picked out a special Christmas outfit at Goodwill instead of Macy’s – which is probably why I can get them at Goodwill!
November 8th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Kristi, thanks. I have no doubt that TODAY the cheese is marketable. When I was doing it 20 years ago, it wasn’t. Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet.
lol Believe me, I would have been tickled to be able to sell it for $8 a pound. It just wasn’t doable then.
We had great success with soft cheese. I made a mean mascarpone and caso blanco for stir fry. We had really hoped to turn out good gouda.
No, other than doing it for fun with the kids to say we’ve done it or with the homeschoolers, I think my cheese making days are probably over.
Sophia, yeah, I terrified my neighbor by telling her I liked to go thrifting. She made a comment about “antiquing occasionally,” but that’s not really what I had in mind. lol
November 8th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I have to ditto Sophia’s list.
It’s wonderful, though, having family who understands the thrifting! My grown sisters and my parents would rather have thrifted gifts, too, because we all know that we can get something nicer, used, than what we could afford new. 
I think most people would think we’re crazy, though, for giving as a gift something we bought used.
Hmmmm…I don’t know if I can add anything to the list. What we do is just so second nature, and we’re so used to everyone thinking we’re crazy *anyway*, that nothing really stands out. Except maybe driving our cars until they die.
November 18th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I make the kids use ziplock bags for their recess snacks and lunches, then I wash them out and reuse them again and again…
My sister saw them hanging on the line and said, “Frogdancer, this just isn’t normal!!”
I gave her the ‘saving the planet’ line. It’s funny but it’s ok to be a tree hugging environmentalist, but not to be frugal. Even though a lot of the activities each group does are the same.
I put a photo of the bags drying on the clothesline on my blog yesterday, as it happens, so I have proof that I do this!!!
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