For people like me who are self-employed and have a steady source of work, the opportunity cost is literally measured in dollars.
...Remember the concept of marginal utility. If Bob earns $100 an hour and house cleaning costs $15 an hour, the difference in marginal utility between $85 and $100 (for that hour) is likely to be less than the negative difference in utility between one hour's house-cleaning and one hour's leisure time.
...
This is quite rare, for most people... highly rare. Your self-employed business that generates a high income is a great example when it makes sense to hire cleaners, and snow shovelers, and gardeners... you do it for your office, and the nearly same arguement holds for your home, too. Hire others so that you can work and make more money.
NOTE Someone pointed out that $100/hr earned = $210k/yr... except that $100/hr is actually after tax... so at the average tax rate on high income here, you would need to earn $350k/yr... which is quite rare.
Are you suggesting that "exchanging $$ for life enjoyment" (or more broadly, exchanging $$ for utility) is not MMM?
Yes, most definitely. MMM is about reducing all discretionary spending to achieve FIRE earlier, and to save the planet through our environmental / non consumerist choices. Also about learning "bad ass" skills to know how to make your own life function independently of others. A "can do" generalist for life, rather than a high wage slave specialist for 25 years.
Because this is what you do every time you buy something that is not strictly needed for survival. Like a coffee. Or anything other than the cheapest, name-brand bulk groceries and unappetising food.
Yes. We all make choices. The coffee choice I make only costs me about $7 per month, though. I buy a lot of bulk groceries and they are more appetising than the fast food or even restaurant meals available near me, and have far, far less additives than even the steakhouse.
"especially if the person is still working and does not wholly enjoy their work... in this case, they are exchanging years of extra work for short term "life enjoyment" provided by the outsourcing of services."
What if someone does not wholly enjoy their work, and does not wholly enjoy housecleaning, but 1 hour of work can pay for 10 hours of housecleaning? Are they not exchanging 1 hour of extra work for 10 hours' less displeasure later on?
My point is that this scenario is exceptionally rare. That someone would work 1 hour of overtime per week, get paid overtime, and use that to fund 10 hours of cleaning. Here, that would require $400 after tax, (cleaners are $40/hr because living wages and contract businesses with overhead) which means earning $800/hr.
And you can substitute house cleaning for - butter churning, gardening, servicing a car, doing one's own plumbing - still no one has responded to that element of the argument.
Absolutely. Everything should be examined.
I have costed out making butter, by trying it and costing... butter is no, yougurt is a yes..I garden, am learning car servicing (it's going poorly!), I do some plumbing, minor electrical.`
I would much rather be FIRED and i realized how little consumer items I need, if it means staying FIRED.
...All things being equal, doing your own chores gives some element of control over your own environment and is a good habit, so there's extra utility gained from being self-sufficient. But I'd say the overall cost-benefit analysis depends on how much Bob earns, how cheap the house cleaning is, and how much Bob dislikes house-cleaning (if at all).
I suspect the real crux of a lot of people's aversion to paying for services is:
1. It can be a bad habit - pretty soon you're paying for chauffeur services or cooking, because you get lazy. I think this is a valid argument. But it is not intrinsic to the discussion - it only reflects a bad tendency of some people, much like lifestyle inflation doesn't always follow from a raise.
2. It relies on capitalist principles, and therefore detracts somewhat from MMM which is predicated on conscious frugality.
Nah, those two points are not even on my radar in this discussion.
It is about weighing the environment and FIRE timeline and my personal desire for indepence (through skills / self/good habits).
Many, not all, people that hire cleaning now would choose to do so after Fire, so it is a double whammy.. you need more saved for higher FIRE expenses, as well as money to cover today's costs.