Fortunately for Mike and I, we’ve always been on the same page
about financial matters. And, I’d have to say that those we’ve
subscribed to and lived have given us a fairly stress free economic
lifestyle in our pre-golden years.
Fortunately for Mike and I, we’ve always been on the same page about financial matters. And, I’d have to say that those we’ve subscribed to and lived have given us a fairly stress free economic lifestyle in our pre-golden years.
I’m sure you’re familiar with most of our tried and trues adages:
– Have economic goals and work toward them together.
– Have a budget and follow it every month.
– Save a percentage of every paycheck.
– Give a percentage of every paycheck.
– If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.
But there’s one that you may not have heard before because I believe we penned it during our poverty years: Never pay someone to do what you can do yourself.
That Evans Original has probably put the most dollars in our bank account, given us the most memories and cost us the most time.
My favorite “self-help memory” took place in the backyard of our very first home.
We knew before we moved in that the land in the back of the house pitched up steeply and that we wouldn’t have more than a six-foot-deep backyard. No room for a clothesline, swing set or flower garden much less a springtime Easter egg hunt.
After we finished hanging the last strip of wallpaper, we turned our attention to the non-existent backyard problem and decided it was time to fix it.
Mike thought we could cut into the hill another six feet, put in a retaining wall and make room for at least a small batch of sod – just enough for a short game of croquet.
When we told friends and family about The Plan, they all said the same thing, “You’re going to hire an excavator, aren’t you?”
With fresh faced naïve energy, we replied, “No, we’re going to dig it out ourselves.”
And, so we did.
The Plan translated into weeks and weeks of blister soaked, Ben Gay rubbed, back breaking, manual labor. A labor of love just for a little lawn.
Since the ground was hard baked clay that closely resembled cement, we’d work very small sections at a time. On the evenings that Mike was at the firehouse, I’d sprinkle for hours trying to soften the hardened surface. Come morning, we’d don old clothes, sun visors, gloves and head to the back yard with determined faces and a cache of high-tech equipment: a pick ax, shovel and wheelbarrow.
Mike would pick, I would shovel and we took turns hauling clots of unwanted soil to a barren spot of our one-acre parcel.
I don’t remember how long it took us, but we did it. We got our wall and our lawn and still laugh and laugh at our youthful engineering feat. No other Evans do-it-yourself project has even come close to our version of “The Great Dig.”
Times have changed. We’ve gotten older, slower and hopefully, a little wiser. Which means we’ve actually resorted to hiring folks to do some of the things we always did.
For example, we recently replaced our 22-year-old carpeting. No, we wouldn’t have tried to stretch and kick four rooms of carpeting ourselves. But, in our younger years, we would have ripped out the old carpeting, hauled it away, pulled out all the staples and tack strips and cleaned the floor to prepare for the new cushy stuff.
When we saw that we’d only save $175 by doing all that prep work ourselves, we looked at each other and said, “It’s time to pay someone to do something we could do ourselves!”
All we had to do was pick out the color, style, pad and then pack up and move everything out of the way. (I did feel a little guilty but it also felt REAL good to just offer soda and snacks to those hired to do the dirty work.)
I’m guessing that we’ll be doing our own yard work, cleaning and car repairs for a good many years but I think the carpeting installation has convinced us it’s time to let others take over some of the heaviest household chores.
Fortunately, years of economic perseverance have given us some wiggle room in our monthly budget. Money we can spend on professionals. Paychecks that give other folks a chance to pay bills, put food on the table, save, give and make memories.
