Most tech workers make a salary. Your labor has no financial value if it's "paint my house" vs "watch TV".
Re:Paint Is Colored Glue
by Dylan16807 on Monday April 08, 2019 @10:01PM
(#19611053)
That's true in a very short term sense.
Over the long term you can either find some freelancing hours or get a job that offers a different expectation of worked hours and a different amount of pay.
So if you're out of balance you can fix it to do more of the job you want and have more leisure hours too. Or less of the job you don't want.
I concluded the same as caymanjim. I’m a firm believer in “Your spare time is only worth money if you’d otherwise be making money.” I’m not paid hourly, so the opportunity cost of my spare time is $0, and like many tech companies, mine forbids freelancing/moonlighting. The math works out to favor DIY in my case but it’s obviously not for everyone.
If I had a job where more hours directly translated into more money, 1. I would drop DIY projects and 2. I would probably become a workaholic.
Re:Paint Is Colored Glue
by Dylan16807 on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @01:33PM
(#19617075)
Okay, but considering that it could save you a huge amount of time overall, next time you're looking for a job consider searching harder for one that has paid overtime opportunities. (But not enough to enable workaholism.)
That's kind of misleading, because it ignores the value of your labor. You work more hours, and you get a lifestyle improvement that can be measured in dollars. You're not preventing costs, you're changing how you pay.
If that's optimal in your specific case then great! But it's easy to imagine a person where it's not optimal at all. If Bob saves $X for every hour he spends on his house, and Bob makes $3X at his job, and he's equally happy doing either kind of labor, then Bob is a fool to do multi-hour household jobs himself.
Using time to save dollars is a tool, one that can be used or misused. You want to optimize lifestyle vs. effort, not lifestyle vs. nominal salary.