this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
974 points (97.6% liked)
CoupleMemes
1094 readers
275 users here now
Community dedicated to memes that often hit a little too close to home. Respect the instance rules and remember that sharing these memes with your SO might 50/50 put you in the doghouse.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Nobody is paying you for the time though, unless you fit in overtime on purpose, to then go eat a paid meal, Or paid car repair, etc.
yes that was in the original comment
in economics the general abstraction would be ‘all things equal next best option’
wage is just a simpler shorthand to quantize your time relative to other options, you could do just straight hours but personally I value my free time well above my pay even with overtime
but you are getting lost in specifics
the point was cooking for yourself has other costs than just food ingredients, those costs are factored into what you pay for an external meal, figure out your total costs (and benefits) for an internal one or it’s not fair to compare the two (an example i highlighted was controlling ingredient quality)
if you’d still rather cook at home but the math doesn’t line up, something is worth more than what’s listed there and there is use in identifying what that is
we do this naturally all the time without deeper thought but people often miss things that way and end up unhappy with decisions
things can turn out in unexpected ways that still fail but i rarely regret doing things otherwise
I guess for me any time not at work is quality time, whether that is cooking a way better meal that what a fancy restaurant can make, or sitting on the porch drinking a coffee.
If it's take the day off work to fix a plumbing problem or call a plumber, I would weigh pay. But if its after work, and money saved by doing stuff myself can go into retirement fund investments instead of paying out a huge amount to a service.
30 years ago it would be a harder sell, because things were cheap, but now, especially after COVID costs ballooned.
Dealer quoted 6 hours to change a VTC spring $1320 labour (at $220)
Took me about 4 hours. So free in my view. But if you wanted to factor my labour as money. $200 at my pay rate.
So the $1100 savings would be time I don't need to work to earn that. I saved myself 22 hours being at work for doing 4 hours work myself.