Exactly this.
Money is a way to get other people to do things for you.
If you are happier doing the things yourself, the money doesn't have much use.
At a certain point, gaining more wealth just doesn't matter.
The only way you can liberate yourself from this is by getting your hands dirty yourself.
You can take pride in the work you get paid for and the work you do outside of work just the same.
Wealth should not be sneered at. Wealth buys a new well for your farm. Wealth buys you tools to expand your capabilities. Wealth allows you to exploit the capabilities of society to accomplish things beyond yourself. Do you want to preserve gun or property rights so you can continue to live a self-reliant lifestyle? That takes wealth(or you can cop-out and let other people do it for you).
I am well aware of the saying "sell your time to buy the time that other people sold", but that cynically omits the benefits of comparative advantage. Most HN readers time is far more valuable than a plumber or carpenter.
Are you sure about that? A good plumber, here in Seattle, can cost $300/hour.
I think it was Penn Jillette who basically said we should most value those who we’d want around in the apocalypse. Farmers, doctors, mechanics would all be worth more than a financier. Maybe the irony is that in the coming decades they will have their comeuppance if their jobs are least likely to be automated away
On the other end of the spectrum, they gamble on tulips. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
There's everything in-between. Factor in the universal human tendency for self-delusion, and you got tulip pushers who think they are moving the pillars of world.
The respectful position is "this isn't my speciality, it's yours, tell me what you need and I'll get out of the way."
"The time it would take me to acquire your skills is more valuable than what you'd charge to fix my problem" is acknowledging the plumber's value, not diminishing it.
You seem to be protecting a lot into a simple price comparison.
You have to do the math on this carefully though.
A lot of people think like this. I get paid $200 an hour, my electrician gets paid $100 an hour, therefore I should pay my electrician $100 and use the time I saved to make $200. But plenty of those jobs don't actually take an hour, even though that's the minimum billing time. So when they take ten minutes, you've got to pay the electrician $600 before you save enough time to make $200 yourself.
Then you've got a transaction costs problem. You called the plumber, but now you've got to let them in, explain the problem, review the invoice, submit payment. It could take the same amount of time as doing it yourself. It could take longer.
Then you've got a knowledge problem. If you take the time to understand how things work then you see warning signs, so you fix things while they're still a $5 problem instead of not understanding that it will turn into a $5000 problem. Or in reverse, not realizing that the person you're paying for services is charging you $5000 for something that could still be fixed for $5.
Then you've got a tax problem. You thought you were "making" $200, but actually half of that is going to taxes, whereas 100% of the money you're spending is actually getting spent.
The result is that the person who works more and pays for everything instead of doing it themselves has a higher annual income on paper, but less actual disposable income because they lose more than that to taxes and costs, and less free time because they're actually working more in reality.
The flaw of course is that $200 is not opportunity cost. Your time is only worth money if you’d otherwise be working. So when I get home from my 9-5 job where I make a fixed salary, and fix my faucet, that job just got done for free. There was no opportunity cost because I don’t get paid hourly and was already done with work for the day.
I’m a rather extreme DIYer, and I can confidently say I would not live the lifestyle I do if I paid people to repair my car, build my furniture, cook my food, mow my lawn, do all my home improvements, plumbing, electrical work, fix my electronics. All that labor adds up, especially in the expensive Bay Area. If you take what you’d otherwise spend on all that, starting say age 20, and instead put it into your retirement account you could probably retire 5-10 years early.
Wealth is worth far more than fancy cars and fine clothing. I couldn't give a shit about expensive material possessions but I think that only an utter fool would disavow themselves of wealth. Don't be conned into thinking wealth is synonymous with frivolous, ostentatious displays and vanity.
That freedom of time is all that money can ultimately provide in the best sense. However, amassing wealth by moving away from that is definitely counter-productive. Wealth is just a means to an end; if the end is already at hand it provides little to no marginal utility.
As a rich guy I knew used to say, do what you do best, and give away all the rest.
I spent my 30s doing all the things you mentioned and more. There was some joy in it, I will admit, but I am vastly less wealthy than if I had focused on my consulting business and learned how to negotiate and supervise the outsourcing of those tasks.
I know a lot of 'do it yourself' types and none of them are wealthy. I know a lot of wealthy people and none of them are 'do it yourself' types. It sucks to admit it, because there is a lot of 'manliness' associated with self-reliance, but it is often a foolish pursuit. Comparative advantage is real and you can use it to get ahead in life.