@samurailynn: That's nuts. I would've cleaned it up myself without taking him to the vet. I would take him to the vet if any fluids started to run and the cut started looking like it was getting infected. That would be more for the antibiotics than anything else.

@gnortenjones: Hey I thought your comment was hilarious. :D

@Jason Bailey: My mother decided to get a "pro" to do some electrical work. Turned out he didn't know jack, blew out every plug (and therefore everything that was connected at the time of the surge). This was in the middle of summer. My brother and I, me in high school, grabbed some books and rewired the house ourselves. None of us had any money to be spending on professionals.

I've reached out to my neighbors to find ways to help each other. I can't mow my own grass due to a back injury, but I can help them out at the things I'm good at. We also have a mutual pack that if one of us gets laid off, we will help the other with watching kids, Internet access, etc. I'm also trimming my dogs nails - something they hate so I've been willing to let them hate someone else.

I find it a better deal to barter than to do things myself, especially things that I'm not good at or abhor.

Dear Consumerist Reader,

Fear not, ending the outsourcing in your life is rough at first but you get used to it. When my wife quit working after we had our first child it was harsh. Now we are used to it!

@kimsama: Wow -- I didn't believe when you said that Trader Joe's has pizza dough for a dollar. Sure enough, I went there last night...and you're absolutely right. Amazing! I'm going to give it a try.

Oh, I still treat, monthly now. I just do it myself.@HappyCthulhu:

@Corporate-Shill: Cats love cockroaches! My friend's cat would always hang out in the basement, waiting for a "cat treat" to crawl out from under the dryer, then he would eat it in 2 bites. Saved her a lot of money on cat treats too!

I like to BBQ all summer, but buying stale pre-made hamburgers can be expensive. Since last summer, my wife and I buy extra-lean ground beef, and mix in BBQ sauce, cajun powder, heaps and heaps of garlic, and even a bit of cheese into the middle of each patty. Make more for less, and they taste amazing. Coming this summer: bacon in the burgers.

See the episode of Good Eats on Pizza for more info. ;)

@kimsama: My secret for pizza is a bit blasphemous. I cook it in a cast iron skillet.

This recipe is really easy and tastes great! Plus there is no kneading or rising or anything.. it bakes more like a casserole, but tastes exactly like pizza!

@samurailynn: Amen. I'm in the same boat. I live in a condo, so that cuts down on the yardwork, but I do my own cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I guess I associate housekeepers and gardeners with tremendous wealth, which I deffinitely don't have. My Mom cuts my hair. There really aren't any services that I pay for. I used to occasionally go out for a mani-pedi, but that's a luxury that I really can't afford anymore.

@summerbee: $5 for dough!? You are getting ripped off! ^_^ If you make the dough, I promise it's easy (or pick it up elsewhere, at Trader Joe's it's like $1). Plus the best sauce is from canned tomatoes (maybe $1 and you'll only need one can, you just blend it up with some spices), but I agree, good cheese is expensive (but at least it's real cheese and not oil-based processed cheese like a lot of cheap pizza places use).

I recently started making a lot of pizza at home, can you tell? ^_^ My big secret has been a really hot oven (450), and a pizza stone. Wow, you would not believe the results.

@Clueless: $1000's of dollars in unseen termite damage??? More than your house is worth.

@pecan pi: Try this.

@cynical_bastard: Use a needle threader. They come with packs of needles, or you can get one at a fabric store or online.

Um, almost everything, because I was never overly reliant on services to begin with?

Make sure, if you're using your cats for pest control, that you maintain their vaccines and also watch them for infections. My cat got sick when she started mousing (indoors...apartment...long story).

So far as bugs...I can't forgo my quarterly maintenance, but I did shop around pretty aggressively, and now I pay $85/qtr. And he wanders around the outside of the house spraying, too...which is fantastic when you're surrounded by the wild yard.

I'd like to stop outsourcing some of my medical care but since they won't let you write prescriptions for yourself and I don't know how to draw my own blood that's out of the question.

@StoicJim: Homemade pizza ends up costing way more than purchased pizza for me. The dough is between 4 and 5 dollars at Redner's, and the sauce is at least 2 dollars, the cheese is about 4, and nevermind toppings! That's at least $11 right there -- I can get a pizza at my local pizza shop for about $7.

@ospreyguy:
+1. We got a cheap set of clippers and scissors and my wife has been cutting my hair since October. Saves me $15/month plus the time and hassle of making an appointment, driving to the barber shop, waiting, and getting it cut there.

As for everything else (lawn care, oil changes, cleaning, etc.) we pretty much do it ourselves because we're incredibly anal about how things are done.

Of course, the secret is buying a good bread machine. After years with a mediocre low-end one, we splurged on Chanukah and bought a Zojirushi for $200 off Amazon. Worth every penny - the bread comes out in a much easier to use loaf form, and it requires much less manual intervention than the old one did (thanks to the dual kneading blades). I want to say cleaning it is easier, too.

IMHO, most food preparation issues people have can be solved by just hunting down the right tools.

It helps that manicures are actually affordable in the city, especially if purchased in packages. I needed a manicure once when I was visiting upstate, and it was both the most expensive and most shoddy I've ever received. I suddenly remembered why I used to consider them totally out of my reach.

And an outside observer can see the character of a person who sets forth on a long-range task and sticks with it even though it would have been easier to just pay someone to do it. You can't buy pride and you can't outsource character. Those things come from the doing, regardless of what it is in particular you are doing.

Don't look at it as deriving pride and character from mowing a lawn or practicing frugality. Look at the pride as the feeling that a person gets when they do something well, and character as the way other people look at a person who chooses to do something difficult - and who does it well - just for the joy of it.

I've never known how to cook and decided to take a cooking class last year. Outside of my college education, it's the best investment I've ever made.

This approach seems decently cheap, and yet it saves us hours of time that we can spend on other things.

Plus this gives some other people money, as in economy is doing better.

@Ben_Q2:

Cats take care of cockroaches? Wood Beetles? Termites? Fleas?

Where I live it does not pay to get or have pest control. Just have some good cats and all is good.

@Eyebrows McGee: I've had my husband cut my hair for a few years now. Handing the shears to him for the first was scary, but it worked out well and I got a ton of compliments from my coworkers on my new haircut.

I'm not sure I'd trust him to do anything more complicated than a simple wash-and-trim, though...

Now I do all of the above chores myself, and have learned to live with the ants in the bathtub. I've been told they are "just looking for water."

I save money and I'm not as lazy as I used to be. In some ways it's been a good thing for me.

Otherwise, my attitude towards home repair "pros" is that one doesn't have to be especially intelligent, skilled, or scrupulous to get a contractor's license. Anyone willing to educate themselves and get the proper tools can do as good a job as the average handyman with a truck and a contractor's license.

The work might take you three times as long, as it does with me, but it's worth it to not have to worry about some overpriced numbnuts and/or ripoff artist touching my house. And best of all, if you do it yourself you get to keep the tools when the job is done.

I've decided to stop outsourcing my sex life, so that should save a buttload of cash. Unfortunately, you can't sell a used blow-up doll on eBay.

Oh, and I've been using the bread machine more to make bread and pizza dough rather than buying as much at the store. I've also severely curtailed my Starbucks trips, opting instead to make coffee at home. Now I go maybe once a week.

But seriously, I make my coffee to go in the morning and bring it with, as opposed to buying an overpriced cup on the move, and we eat at home more. I used to drop my laundry off at the laundromat, but now that I live with my gf, we just go and do it together. And now I wash and iron my own dress shirts, as opposed to bring them to the cleaners. I prob save like $40 a week on laundry and shirts now.

'most anything with a "dry clean only label" can go thru the cold wash delicate cycle with Woolite or equivalent - haven't dry cleaned anything but coats in years

It amazes me how many people here spring for maid & gardening services but then in another post, you'll see dozens of protests over things like a $5 monthly bank fee...?

I did this about a year ago. Buy a product online called Suspend SC and a sprayer and do it yourself. It's about $40 a bottle, and it's a mix you do yourself. I had a friend with a massive ant infestation inside and outside, and after treating the property they have not seen anything since. Then I come to find out the pest control company I was using uses the same thing. Go figure.

The only thing stopping me from cooking more is my wife whining about how long it takes to make dinner. I've told her I'd happily quit my job and stay home to cook for her, but she'll have none of that. :(

I had trouble figuring out the 'v But once I "read" the rest of it, it all "came" together.

We're definitely foregoing getting a maid service to help us with the spring deep clean - but again, I'm here all the time now, so I can do that myself.

I was already doing all my own food preparation, and getting my hair cut at cheap places in Koreatown instead of trendy places elsewhere here in L.A., so really, the only things to cut when I got laid off and times got tough were the ones that my husband and I were only paying for because I was working in the first place.

And before anyone implies we're resurrecting the 50s, had he been the one laid off, I'd still expect dinners, cleaning and childcare. Whoever is the stay at home spouse gets the stay at home jobs we would have otherwise paid someone else to do.

@ospreyguy: I cut my own hair, I bought a good pair of clippers and another mirror and I do it all myself. 5 years now, of course its not hard when you shave it the shortest you can.

@SadSam: Oh, if ONLY someone would come clean the bathroom...

@ElizabethD: My mom has cleaned houses for (necessary) extra income for as long as I can remember. Whenever times are hard, she gets one call after another, being told that she is no longer needed. Times like these are so hard for her.

I'm among those who is learning to cook and packing a lunch nearly all the time. (The only exception is when I make arrangements to have lunch with a friend, and not always even then.) I also gave up manicures and pedicures (which in New York somehow seem almost mandatory) and have been taking the bus instead of the train to visit friends in nearby cities. Sometimes I used to lazily send out my laundry, but I don't do that anymore.

I'm still paying my cleaning lady, though, because left to my own devices, I will never ever ever ever clean the house. Ever. I just do not notice mess until it's epic. A few years ago I accepted that I am naturally a slob, and that if I don't want to live like a slob, I am going to have to ante up. If I get laid off this year, I'll cancel, but that's what it would take to make me stop having a housekeeper.

Today I discontinued my quarterly pest control visits. I will kill the varmints myself.

Annual Savings: $200

Me crawling around the attic spraying for ants: Priceless

Oh, I also won't do things that are a pain, like change my own oil. I've got life time oil change anyway at my local shop, so it's a moot point now anyway. I recently took my snowblower in for service. I suppose I could have fixed it myself, but the garage is freezing cold and I didn't want to get the house dirty, and I was in a hurry (there's snow, you see).

I make what lots of people call a damned good income. I have no idea how people that only make half of what I do go out for lunch all the time, pay for lawn service, snow service, have property up north, boats on the lake, and dog poop service. Debt, maybe?

Oh, yeah. I renewed Scott's service. They always seem to do better than I can for some reason, even though I buy the same chemicals.

I stopped eating meat. I'd rather make meatloaf with fifty cents' worth of TVP than three bucks' worth of rejected milking-cow meat.

@TheFuzz53: Good one... heh heh heh. I almost reached the end of the posts...couldn't believe no one said that..

When I am working I have trouble stopping what I am doing for housework. A quick cost/benefit analysis tells me I can spend an hour washing and ironing my husband's shirts myself or send them out for $1.20/each while I make 80 times that working the same hour. There are only so many hours in the day.

My husband does all of our regular yard maintenance, snow clearing, as well as most minor household and auto repairs, but that takes most of his free time. When I have some extra dough stashed I try to surprise him by hiring somebody for fall cleanup or that first lawn cut when the grass looks two feet tall. Most of the time I feel like we work like friggen' pilgrims.

If people get a sense of accomplishment from something they do for themselves, that's great; I like cooking so making my own meals is a reasonable and enjoyable economy, whereas cleaning the house merely left me fed up. Plenty of people spend money on coffee, or eating out, or going to bars, or gaming that's as much or more than I spend on my outsourcing, presumably because it gives them a life that that's much more pleasurable. I don't see my usage as different.

(Maybe your husband would be willing to try it a few times and see if he finds it worthwhile in the reduction of household stress? Or maybe it's worth paying for this one on your own?)

@SScorpio:

We actually had a Roomba that got lost in our 2004 move but you've encouraged me to start really looking for it. I'm sure its around some where and you are right the Roomba is great for picking up the dog hair. But what I really want is someone to clean the bathrooms and the kitchen and dust the baseboards and things like that.

I know where I live you have to get a new circuit inspected before having it go live. It's not difficult or expensive, but it could cost you when you go to move if you didn't pull the proper permits or if an accident happens and your insurance decides not to cover you since the proper inspections weren't performed.

I've saved many jackets just by sewing the lining, its not hard and believe me, no one stares at the inside of your jacket. I've also sewed countless buttons, the stuff they use on pants these days just doesn't hold up. All my pants are too big on me so its not like I am busting off the buttons on my pants either. I couldn't imagine going out to buy new pants every time the button came off, that would be insane.

Oh and I get most of my sewing stuff from yard sales or bag sales, these places are packed with it, and its dirt cheap. Most people will dump all their sewing stuff at once and you can pick up a whole bag for like a dollar. I now have more thread and needles than I can use. If you need something specific all the craft stores here have 50% off coupons, use them.

One thing about the jacket lining is you should probably try to get to it when it is a tiny tear, if it becomes a larger tear it will take a long time to sew it up!

I've had to get a dog walker because my wife and I both have day jobs and the dogs have taken to going to the bathroom in the house. Do I feel less self-sufficient for it? Not really. Besides, in the past year we've doubled our income so we can live like we used to --for the most part -- and afford a few extra perks to increase our quality of life

It's nice to work for government contractors.

@ludwigk: The prices are awful, compared to everywhere else I shop. I go to usually lower-cost grocery stores (like Winco) and can get 2 ounce pouches of reasonably quality spice in ethnic sections for roughly 80 cents. The last time I checked the bulk prices was admittedly about 6 months ago, but across the board it was incredibly costly still at Whole Foods. I will have a look there tonight and see though, just ran out of milk and apples.

I also shop at a local east-asian grocer for my loose rice, it was a whopping 60 cents a pound for amazing aromatic thai jasmine rice--this was when there was the purported rice shortage and a 5 lb bag of mediocre long grain would cost me $4 at a regular store.

It's curly. When I go to the salon they charge me $40 to get it wet, part it in the middle, and cut in a straight line. I can do that. And if I mess it up, the curls hide the errors. If I had straight hair, I'd probably hire someone to cut it.

Some days I just get out of the shower, go, "Man, I'm tired of it being this long," grab my sewing scissors, and cut it off. Feels good.

I cut my BF's hair (it looks great) and let my sons' hair grow (they think it's cool). I don't go to the drycleaners any more - I use Dryel. I cook - lots. We eat leftovers for lunch most days.

But I'm sure you "outsource" some things that other people can't imagine hiring someone to do. Do you make your own clothes? Can your own preserves?

I know HOW to change my oil, but I really can't be arsed to do it when it costs me $17.95 to have someone else do it faster and better. But I'm always mind-boggled when someone young and healthy hires out their yard chores. Different strokes.

Not that self-sufficiency isn't good, but it's easy to get up on a moral high horse about the character inherent in doing chore X, when one is outsourcing chore Y that other people are doing themselves.

@ospreyguy: I cut my boyfriend's hair now. It saves him about $10-15 every two weeks. I also cook a lot more, especially since I can find cheap fresh ingredients in Chinatown and New Chinatown (ie. Clement St) in San Francisco. Also, no going to movies (haven't gone in about 2 yrs).

Now cookies, you can save a bundle making your own baked goods. The margins on those things are obscene, and butter, sugar and flour are some of the cheapest ingredients you can get (Ok. butter is a bit less cheap..).

Most cooking spices cost like $4-5 for a 2 oz bottle, and its hard to go through them before they go stale. This was actually getting really expensive because I use a lot of different ingredients when cooking. I got a bunch of tiny jars and loaded them up with small batches of spices from Whole Foods, and that's saved me a ton of money. Plus, you can get all the wacky weird ingredients that you might not normally use for like $.35 each, instead of buying a $4 bottle of turmeric that'll fester for years in the pantry.

@samurailynn: Winco has great dough AND I love the leonardi's pizzas as well. Winco itself is just great. Hooray for one of the best bulk choices I've ever seen, great prices, and an amazing company-employee relationship.

We took him to the vet, and the vet said, "Yep, looks like he got bit by something. We can operate for about $700.00 to fix him up." So I said, "Uhhhh... is there anything else we could do?" And the vet said "Oh, sure, you could just clean out the wound yourself every day for a week. It'll heal just fine that way."

It was still a $100 bill for the visit and the antiseptics and antibiotics that they sent me home with, but that's a lot better than the $700 operation.

@Lin-Z: wonderbread hot dog buns, salt, margarine, galric powder, and more salt.

Maybe my limited OG experiences have been not the norm, but blecch.

While it won't help with getting the dog hair off furniture. You'd be amazed with the daily automatic cleaning done by a Roomba will pick up. They are also considerably less than a hired service.

Today I canceled my quarterly exterminator visit. I will now kill the varmints myself.

Annual savings: $260

Me crawling around the attic spraying for ants: Priceless

@sean98125: That's where I get mine. :)

Hear! Hear!

I also make my own bread/lots of other foods. But I had been doing that for a few years i.e. before everything exploded. And I've been trying to get good at sewing so I can make nice clothes that I like.

Other than that...I'm in college so I do practically everything for myself anyway. The only outsourcing I do is getting the boyfriend to help.

I draw the line at cutting my own hair though. I just can't do it properly.

BTW, sewing is a learned skill. It takes a bit of effort to learn proper techniques. Those people who do alterations learned it so can you.

@floraposte:

All my friends have house cleaning services and I've been trying to convince Mr. Sam that we need a service because after working 12 hours at the office the last thing I want to do is come home and clean up after him. Mr. Sam is great about cleaning the house once a week but prefers to conserve his energy during the week (so day to day cleaning falls to me). I'd rather spend our limited weekend time not cleaning the house.

He thinks that two able body adults (me and him) should be able to keep our house clean but we really can't because we both work a ton and we have a dog that is always producing dog hair. We've talked about hiring a service to come once a month to do the heavy lifting but now he's worried about the economy and won't commit.

The only service we have is a once a week dog walker.

I go to a barber. 17$ plus tip. Lasts for 3 months (and longer if it's winter. Not taking a chance on something I use 24/7

Yes, the domino effect of economizing is sad. As I say below, when my husband lost his job, so did the woman who had been cleaning our house twice a month for 16-17 years.

I am always shocked by how many people I know who are NOT rich by any stretch, have cleaning crews, etc. I really don't get it.

Not outsourcing is a good way to check yourself-- do I REALLY care if my lawn looks like a putting green if I have to spend hours to do it? Do I really want Edward-Scissorhands-trimmed shrubbery? Do the spots and salt stains on my car give it a homey, lived in feeling instead of that bright shiny ultra-wax?

Could lose the blow, though. Hookers no, blow yes.

@sean98125: Eh, I have tendonitis and i can't knead and don't have an appropriate mixer. Still, you can buy cheap dough. I make a 14" very cheesy pizza for about $5 (dough is $1.30) and beats the hell out of anything in a freezer case.

Out of all the "out-sourcing" taking pants to a local seamstress or tailor will probably be the one thing I continue to do. (I've already nixed the drycleaner and handwash my delicates. Also better to control nasty drycleaning chemicals. ::wink::)

Of the very small number of things I'm really good at, I'd never DREAM of outsourcing them. But, then again, I'm good at them because they're fun and because they're fun I don't have qualms about practicing.

I'd sooner pave my lawn and give the local skater kids an additional place to loiter and make me yell at them than go back to deweeding. Seriously, yo.

Plumbling is really easy for most household repairs. It gets a little trickier putting new drains or lines in, but still not that hard.

It's just about getting in there with a friend who knows what he's doing and getting your confidence level up.

@sean98125: That's awesome. I have a niece and nephew (none of my own yet) and I'm always amazed at how most kids are so willing and eager to help--and learn--just about anything you put in front of them. With the right approach, of course.

In fact, now that all my coworkers got laid off, I have even less time to do the things I need to do! And I don't get paid any more money, either!

Still have cable, internet and cell service, but who can go without a cell phone if you don't have a landline? No point in getting a landline when a cell phone can go where you go. Also, I'm locked into contracts and I love my TV and internet.

I traded in my car and got a new one. It's going to cost me less in the long run, and my insurance and my auto tax went down.

I bring my lunches to work, and because I do that, I don't feel bad when hubby and I go to dinner on the weekends.

With the cost of going to the movie theater so high now, we have a system with our friends. If there's a movie only one or two of us wants to see, they have to pay for everyone to sit through the movie. Generally there's only four of us, so it's not too expensive, but it proves you really, really, really want to see Marley & Me (and I don't care for it, but I didn't pay for it).

I can't cut my own hair, but I only go to the salon every seven or eight months if it's a real hairstyle, and not a trim (the place I go to does very minor trims for free, but they have to be so minor you sit for 30 seconds, like trimming bangs). Hubby goes every month and a half, and it costs a lot more, but he's stopped griping about how the Hair Cuttery makes his hair uneven, so it's worth the extra money to go to a real salon. * No offense to those who work at Hair Cuttery and who cut hair evenly, or listen to what their customers want.

my work cancelled our cleaning service and now makes me clean the bathrooms... im management btw

I agree. I have a four-year-old daughter at home who is learning how to cook, how to change oil in a car and how to check the air in the tires, how to do simple household repairs and how to do yard work and gardening. And she loves washing the car. We get to spend time together doing something other than watching TV and she has so much confidence because she is doing things instead of being told she's too little.

And instead of just learning some basic recipes. I started a collection of all our favorite restaurant dishes, and I'm slowly learning how to prepare each of them. I've already wiped out the entire Olive Garden menu (the good parts at least).

My parents are cutting their house cleaning service, but that's to afford a fancy cell phone plan. Go fig.

Wait a minute, no I didn't. I paid someone to do that.

I still hire all the same tradespeople I always have.

Hrrm. Cut back on more expensive dining out, and stopped shopping at Whole Foods for anything other than milk, wine on sale, or a small amount of fresh produce.

The only reasons I was shopping there was because at the time I had money, it was open late, and it's a 2 minute walk. No other grocery store is within walking distance (OK, Trader Joe's is an hour walk round trip and I love it but you can't buy everything there--and i don't drive). But you can only buy so many $17/pound USDA Prime Ribeyes before you realize "hey waitaminute, two bags of groceries cost me how much?!"

it was a bit fun while it lasted.

The problem with this is that we really don't have anything to cut back spending on when times get tough.

'v bn mstrbtng lk crzy. Y wldn't blv th mny 'm svng by dng t myslf!

@Myron: I'm just speaking vis-a-vis the "vicious cycle" of wealth. The more services people outsource, the more they take them for granted, then the more they feel the necessity to have 2+ incomes in the home.

Maybe I've just become more and more old-school over the years, but I can't imagine a life without washing cars, mowing my lawn, gardening, changing oil, etc. To me, handing control of those over to another party is beyond just a money/time thing...it's also about pride and character.

Looks like the rest of the country is catching up with me. I've been cutting my own hair and doing my own yardwork for years. I even clean my own house every now and then too. It's not hard. It takes some extra time, sure, but what else would you be doing? Watching "American Idol?"

I used to bring my lunch to work, but when I quit smoking (that saves a lot of money!), I started going home to break the habit of sitting around after eating lunch because that made me want a cig. It wastes gas, but it's saving my lungs in the long run. If I go home, I don't have time to sit around after I eat.

I wash my own car but I do it at the self-serve car wash so they can recycle a lot of the water.

Can't cut my own hair, or I'll end up looking like the kid in the Girl Scout post.

@White Speed Receiver: Oh bad call, that is a necessary expenditure my friend.

Keep in mind that there are things that people should NOT do on their own, but still do. Electrical work, plumbing, and AC or furnace repair should be left to a licensed professional. Cutting your own hair or lawn is great, but don't try your own home repairs because it it is dangerous and most likely cost you more in the long run.

"After all, as incomes rose and gender roles changed over the last 50 years, families have become accustomed to outsourcing more and more of their household chores. No longer was it just the very rich who had "servants," said Jan de Vries, an economic historian at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Household members, particularly women, have been working more in the market," said Mr. de Vries. "They have had less time and higher money income, and they have been spending a lot of that money income on services they once provided themselves.""

I've started chatting manually with friends and family in person. Analog works surprisingly well, even in the 21st century!

I've started spending time with the Receiveress again instead of independent contractors.

I stopped outsourcing Consumerist postings. Now I can finally afford that sub-prime loan I took out.

I have a feeling that I will be cutting my own lawn this summer

And this is why I live in an apartment where the lawn is taken care of by my landlord, and where I can't have a dog to take walking (but I did my own dog walking when I had one), and I'm always packing my lunch. So, in-sourcing isn't so bad. It's a cheaper way of life!

I washed my dogs yesterday - saved about $60 or about $720/yr

I am not looking forward to telling my gardener that after they do the spring cleanup that I'll handle from then on. Being a single guy, I already do my own laundry, cook, and clean (ok, not so much but I do it when I HAVE to).

I've stopped making fun of people for outsourcing their lives?

I think one of the most telling symptoms of overconsumption is the way middle-class people have increasingly taken after upper-class privileges, taking them for granted in the process. When I was younger, only the richest (and/or oldest) people had housekeepers or lawn crews. Now it's more than half the people I know.

In-source your life! It's more time and effort, but the rewards of self-sufficience and quality control are worth it.