Originally Posted by
FiftySix
It depends on the situation.
Whenever I repair something myself, one of my motivations is the money I want to save. Which is my time to do the job versus paying someone else to do the job. For example, the lower control arm I replaced in my wife's car a couple weeks ago. I sure didn't do that for enjoyment or satisfaction, but I sure did trade my time for the money I saved not having to pay the repair shop down the street a couple hundred dollars.
fair enough, but outside ~9-5 M-F, time/cost ceases to be the primary arbiter of how I spend my time. Earlier this year I spent ~2 months on&off evenings and weekends bringing my old Subaru back from the brink, but saved ~$4k in the process. Did I spend $4k of my time doing it? Don’t know, don’t care. I like doing stuff like this -I learned a lot, bought a few nice tools along the way, and my old and patina’d wagon is back on the road, giving me the warm fuzzies every time I drive it. If I had calculated ahead of time how many hours I would spend, and how much that time was “worth”, the car would likely be in the junkyard and I’d be making a payment on another car. Sure, I like saving money, but sometimes the doing is it’s own reward