"Under every stone lurks a politician." - Aristophanes

We all have things we pay others to do for us that we could do ourselves. I cut and split 10 cords of firewood instead of paying someone to deliver it. It took me weeks to finish but saved me about $1,500 after the rental of the hydraulic splitter.

Open a can of chicken noodle soup and you've done the same thing - paid someone to do for you what you could have done yourself. The same is true of oil changes, snow plowing, getting a pizza delivered, and a host of other things we don't think about.

There are some very good reasons for paying someone else for certain tasks, including:

• The task requires special equipment I don't have and can't reasonably get, like the the diagnostic computer the auto shop uses to figure out why my car won't pass emissions testing.
• The task requires special skills that I can't reasonably master, like wiring in a 3-way switch, or removing my own appendix.
• The task would take more time and effort for me to do badly than it would take a professional to do well and quickly, like tree pruning a big tree or putting on a new roof.

The flip side: I cede control when I have someone else do the task and may pay a price for outsourcing it. Among them:

• The most obvious is money. It's a rare job that doesn't cost more to have someone else do it. 
• When I pay someone to prepare my food I eat whatever they decide to put in it, whether it's a restaurant meal or that can of soup. I probably don't even know what's in there. I'm at their mercy.
• I miss the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from doing it myself. That bothers some people more than others, but anyone who's eaten tomatoes from their garden or looked at walls they painted themselves knows how satisfying that is.
• I also take whatever they give me. Hopefully the quality of their work or product measures up, but if it doesn't I have to decide to protest or deal with it. 

I thought about all of this while I was working on a variety of things today. I wrestled some of the big rotten rounds from the school marm to an area near the creek. They're no good for firewood but were up near the coop where I saw them every time I looked out the window. Bugged me to see them, so I started moving them over the slight hill and down closer to the creek. They weigh about 100 lbs. each, and Todd could relocate them with his Bobcat quickly and easily compared the the grunting, groaning, hefting and hoisting I'm going. But I like the exercise and have more time than money. That's the same reason I spent weeks on the firewood and Pam makes soup and managed our vegetable garden. The chickens and goats go in the same category.

I thought more about this as I wired in the under-dash lighting I installed in the truck. I put a switch high on the left side kick panel where it can't be seen but is easy to reach as I get in or once I'm seated. 

I thought to myself, "Self, it's a shame bad you're so bad at math, 'cause I think there's a Nobel Prize in economics here. There's got to be some way to quantify all of this, some complex formula that assigns a weight to the advantages and trade-offs of hiring someone to do any particular task. The result would be a number between 1 and 10, with the upper end of that range indicating it's a task worth outsourcing. Brain surgery would get a 10, vacuuming the living room would get a 1. 

There's have to be some way to factor in special variables, so that someone who's in a wheelchair would get a higher number for that vacuuming than a healthy 13-year old. 

What tasks do you do that others hire out? Do you outsource jobs that most others do themselves? Why? 

What are you giving up by hiring someone else to do _____? When you look at it closely is that trade-off worth it? 

You wanna put together that formula?