What's your time actually worth???

HGSR

HGSR

craigslistaholic
Joined
Feb 26, 2010
Location
kings mountain nc
Whats our time really worth? Especially when time isn't something you have plenty of becuse family is absolute #1 and time must be spent there but other things that's take up our time like jobs, kids ball games and just general responsibility?

Like the time it takes to build a bumper of your own design, especially if your not one with any real fabricating knowledge or a go to guy for questions and direction. What got this thought rolling around in my head was the winch bumper build for my tacoma. I like to build things, it's usally fun and the whole built not bought saying always holds a big value of its own. So far I have managed to get by on the stuff I have had to build, I don't weld or do anything job related to metal fabrication. So Iam slow, slow as hell actually and Iam very cautious on any of this truck building stuff because I have a fear of building some awful eye sore that's headlines the pirate4x4 booty fab page so far that hasn't happened!! most times I will say no to ppl who want things done and suggest the real shops who I know can do what they need

The real question is when does your time effort and general hassle seem more expensive than just flat out buying bolt on ready to use parts?

Iam lucky to have a boss that would let me work 7 days a week if I wanted, so I keep thinking the time it takes me to build these things could have been paid for by just working some 60-70 hr weeks and not have to deal with the headache that comes from ground zero parts fabrication??? we all know the domino effect that can come from just one change done to a truck and that can turn into a hassle epically if it's not the normal that's been posted a dozen times so you know what your in for or 10 threads show 15 ways that's it's been done before.

Idk if I would be so damn slow if I wasn't so worried about it being 100% functional and as perfect as I can possibly make it or what someone might say about it this or that being garbage and looking like ass. Or that I just flat out built scrap yard art that's good for nothing and wasted time and materials doing to. Time being king here.

Any of that make sense? Maybe I just need a vacation or a dr appointment. Lol. Damn it is Monday isn't it....
 
It depends....

I'm technically unemployed, but I am trying to start my own small business doing graphic arts and web design. There are "guidelines" out there as to how much to charge, but often times because I am targeting other small businesses, I realize that their budgets are tight too, so I bill accordingly. I work out of my house, so I don't have huge overhead, but I do need to charge enough to make it worth my time. Even still, there are other times that I try to help friends out and don't charge (or don't charge enough).

When it comes to working on vehicles, however, I tend to look at my time differently. To do an oil change in my driveway, I'm looking at about 2 hours of time invested from shopping for oil/filter to clean up and disposal of oil. Since the local oil change place is about $25, and can get it done and back home in about 30 minutes, it's more worth it for me to take it there to get it done. In my lifetime, I've probably done hundreds of oil changes, but I'm now at a point at which it's more worth it to pay someone to do small (messy) stuff like that.
 
If it is something that I need in a timely manner and keeps the object from being used, I think buying it is the way to go. If it is not a critical thing and you enjoy doing it yourself then have fun and learn. I recently had some parts blasted and coated after doing some myself, It just makes no sense to get an inferior product for the same money. I also do plenty of stuff for myself because I get a better product for the same or less money. Be flexible and don't lock yourself in to one mode.
 
It's the ole delicate balance of Time vs. Money... There's only 24 hours a day to start with. Then subtract your daily routine and it leaves what??? But you got to make hay while the sun is shining.

I know my personal rates (what my time's actually worth) fluctuates depending on how much work and how much time I have at the time. A fatter wallet leans towards a higher rate as well. And usually seasons affect the rate.

I try to buy bolt-on as much as I can to focus on projects that aren't so bolt-on to do myself. Crazy how you can have someone fab a bumper that fabs them all day long much faster (and usually better) than you can do it yourself. And you can't buy "time" back. And some timely things that end out biting you is factoring in running around for materials considering material markets are only open 8-5 M-F. And that's my hay making time. Being a perfectionist and fixing minor screw ups can add up as well. So if you have a list of other things that need done, go bolt-on if available...
 
Going to finish this bumper, but after this Iam going to look at things a little different. I didn't pay much attention to the value of time a few years back as it was a lot easier and I had time to burn.

Thanks for the replys guys.
 
If I'm building something for my own needs, chances are I enjoy doing it so therefore my time is free. If I'm building something for a friend, I've learned that business and friendship rarely mix well so, again, my time is free. I'd rather bite the bullet and not make a profit and keep friends. Or trade. Anyone else can blow it. $80 an hour.
 
I have charged for few jobs in the past but since then I have just kept my work to a very small group that I wouldn't ever charge to do things for.
 
There's only about 4 or 5 people, good friends, that I'd ever do work for for free. These are also the same people I wheel with every trip, spend countless hours with on weekends, rolled around in the mud changing out broken parts til the wee hours of the morning and those favors get returned.
 
Needs to be a trade off. I have gotten to where I tell people that I don't have the time which is true. It's hard to find the time to work on my own stuff let alone work on someone else s. There are only a couple people that I will work on there stuff but they also come over to help me work on my stuff too.
 
HGSR said:
Going to finish this bumper, but after this Iam going to look at things a little different. I didn't pay much attention to the value of time a few years back as it was a lot easier and I had time to burn.

Thanks for the replys guys.
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A good friend of mine who was in the fabrication business had a philosophy that played to this. He could build just about anything, but if a customer said, "How much for you to build me a bumper that looks just like an ARB Bull Bar?", he'd tell them to just buy an ARB Bull Bar. However, if they said, "I want a bumper that has the same bottom as an ARB Bull Bar, but the top that looks like this....." then he would start talking. His time was too valuable to recreate something that was already commercially available. One-off customs are a tough bird to fly. You have to ride the line where it's custom enough to be unique, but done efficiently enough hat you don't blow all your time and materials in concept development and have no time to generate the product and keep customers coming back.
 
Iam not complaining about working on others stuff just when do you decide your better off just to buy something over building it.
I can build the bumper but not in a timely manner. I do have a truck Iam building for someone else. And he knows Iam stupid busy with must do's in life. And I felt bad about working on my own truck before his is completed. So I try like crazy to be done ASAP so his can roll back in. If I had just bought the bumper it would have been a cut and dry process of just installing. But how my luck has went with mail order I would have ended up with a custom bumper for a 91 civic.
 
for me it was the learning experience on a lot of my builds.. I wanted and did build pretty much everything I could for many years on a lot of projects.. I am glad I spent the years practicing and learning how to do things.. so now I can build things a lot faster and better.. but with 2 young kids I do find myself buying stuff that is already fabbed and then I modify it to my liking.
 
This is a great question. If the project or part steals from the time of my job, then my time is a lot more valuable. If it steals from my family time, it is a little less valuable (I expect that my family can be without me for reasonable stretches).

That being said, I've made it a habit to do repairs in the evenings when everyone is winding down and going to sleep. That time is free, and all my own to spend. In the last two months, I did $2000 worth of work on my wife's old BMW for the cost of parts ($675). It took 4 weekend evenings and the better part of a Saturday. And I did all the wiring, framing, tiling and finish work on installing a gas fireplace in my basement (probably saved myself $1500 right there). In a backward sense, i see those savings as earnings because I got something that I didn't have before, and i all I had to spend was time. And for me, evening time is basically TV time.

Now you bring up whether it's better to work the extra hours and just buy the part. That's a good point. For me, I work a desk job, so getting the variety of doing something by hand has some extra value in it.

By the way, driving around this weekend, I noticed a lot of Tacomas with freshly fabbed bumpers (I live uphil from you.) Did they go on sale or something? :D
 
Lol if they went on sale I sure wish I had caught wind of it!!

I do my shop time early in the morning on the weekends Iam not working. I'll go down there about 4am and work until 9:00-9:30. I see it the same way, everyone is asleep so that's time Iam not putting anyone in a bind and no plans have to change because Iam in the shop. Weekday evenings iam usually in by 9-930 so I can see my daughter before her bed time but Iam not in my shop but one or two evenings during the week. I didn't get to enjoy this age with my sons because of nightmare custody issues and years of non stop hell with trying to see them. So I feel way guilty when I don't see her in the evenings before bed.

thats exactly how I do my weekend overtime to I can squeeze in a seven hrs before lunch and not missed long. the shop isn't open until 630 but I go in 2hrs early every day so my over time won't mess with any evening plans my wife may have.
 
hans747 said:
Now you bring up whether it's better to work the extra hours and just buy the part. That's a good point. For me, I work a desk job, so getting the variety of doing something by hand has some extra value in it.
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The catch to this is that it isn't always an option. I'm salaried and exempt from overtime pay, I can only work overtime w/ special permission and then it's only 1x, not 1.5 except in really rare circumstances.
The only way I can make "extra" money is to sell something and make a profit, random side jobs, unused TDY M&E expenses, etc. Hell if I could tack on an extra 10 hrs of work time and get paid for it, I'd do that in a heartbeat and use that money to pay for lots of stuff I do myself.

There have been lots of times I stepped back and said, "I'd rather just pay somebody", or "I'd rather just buy it", but the budget wasn't there to support that option. So I had to do it myself.
But with all that said, in many truck projects, I do it for the experience of learning something, OR knowing that by doing it myself I can make sue it's done how I want. Like in the above example w/ changing oil... I change my oil oil because at the same time, I check other fluids, and look around the car for any potential issues. That's 1-1 time between me and the car. Plus I get to pick my own oil and filter (granted I just use cheap stuff anyway). You don't get that by going to a quick-lube place.

As I'm getting older though, and more importantly my kids are getting older, I'm seeing the value of the time spent w/ them instead of cursing at a truck project. When they are older, I want them to look back and remember the fun things we did together, the things I taught them, and what it meant to be part of our family. They won't get that from me spending my weekend hours working on the perfect bumper for my truck.

So to me, it's not a question of "what is your time worth"... in dollars... because that's really hard to put a number on Going by my salary is irrelevant, and I refuse to pu ta dollar value on seeing my kids' smile.
Rather, it's a question of "where does this fall in your priorities?"
In many cases, the financial cost has an influence on the answer. Is this ore, or less important than watching that extra movie on Sat night? More, or less important than mowing the grass? More, or less important than going to your son's band concert, which you know will be boring and painful, and you'd enjoy getting weld slag on your toes more than listening to those 4th graders play violin... but you know really is so much better for them to see you there smiling...
 
For me it has flipped as I have aged.
When I was young and new in my career money was very tight and time was plentiful. I did everything myself.
Now money is more comfortable and time is more precious than diamonds. Most things I farm out. I also see the benefit of getting professional quality and building relationships with the vendors that may pay dividends in the future.
 
...Are ya'll talking time or work? If you're skilled and in demand time/work that keeps you from doing things you'd rather do should be set to your satisfaction ( worth it to your satisfaction or not done at all ). As I age and have less free time = having more things to take care of all the time, I find my free time to do what I want to do is more scarce and more valuable than ever.
 
RatLabGuy said:
But with all that said, in many truck projects, I do it for the experience of learning something, OR knowing that by doing it myself I can make sue it's done how I want. Like in the above example w/ changing oil... I change my oil oil because at the same time, I check other fluids, and look around the car for any potential issues. That's 1-1 time between me and the car. Plus I get to pick my own oil and filter (granted I just use cheap stuff anyway). You don't get that by going to a quick-lube place.

As I'm getting older though, and more importantly my kids are getting older, I'm seeing the value of the time spent w/ them instead of cursing at a truck project. When they are older, I want them to look back and remember the fun things we did together, the things I taught them, and what it meant to be part of our family. They won't get that from me spending my weekend hours working on the perfect bumper for my truck.
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i hear you on that. My sons are 7 and 11. I don't get to work long stretches in my garage or on my house because I am constantly being asked to shoot hoops, go for a run, or play a video game. All of which are tempting proposals. So i'm contrantly pulled away mid-project, but then I'm always pulling them into my projects, too. i want them to have fun, but i also want them to be able to understand how to do things with their hands.

I think HGSR has a good system: get the extra work done while they sleep. Trust me, the fact that you are up and working before they pour a bowl of cereal is not lost on your kids. They pick up on what grown-ups do. The hard part is matching their energy when you've been up since 4:30!

Man, this turned into a partening thread really fast... I guess my advice to HSGR is this: whether you save your pennies to buy your bumper or start DIYing it, that bumper is not appearing overnight. It sounds like you're not going to sacrifice time with your kids for the bumper, right? So try this: save your pennies AND build the bumper yourself. Set aside something like $25 or $50 bucks per weekend (whatever you can afford) that you work on it. That way, when it's eventually done, you will have some extra money stashed under the bed, and you can spend it on doing something fun with you and your kid. Take her out on a father/daughter date and have a good time. You'll have a bumper and some good memories.
 
Last week I did something I have not done in maybe 10 years. I don't really know for sure b/c I can't remember... but anyway, I paid a shop to do some work I could have done myself. GASP! I feel liek its the end of an era.
The front downpipe on my Mazda had rusted so that it broke off at the flange to the main connecting pipe. In theory, just 2 bolts in back, 3 up top at the front cat... then quickly realized, hey these are 13 y/o bolts w/ 180k miles on them... this is gonna suck and involve a lot of profanity...
I thought about this thread, and decied, you know what I'll let an exhaust shop handle this.
Dropped off at lunchtime while I and some buddies ate out, picked up on my way home that day.
Worth every penny. My wife almost fainted when I told her - and laughed at me and said, "Now what will you do with the time you just saved?"

..."work on the old Bronco, of course... oh yeah after playing w/ the kids a little I guess, huh :D"
 
hans747 said:
i

I think HGSR has a good system: get the extra work done while they sleep. Trust me, the fact that you are up and working before they pour a bowl of cereal is not lost on your kids. They pick up on what grown-ups do. The hard part is matching their energy when you've been up since 4:30!
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I work at night after the kids go to bed, similar deal. I prefer that b/c in a worst-case scenario I can stay up really late and work throug hto fix something; working in the AM means a hard-stop. Plus I love laying my head down to sleep w/ that feeling of accomplishment.

Here's another angle. My day-job is the sort where I don't get immediate resolution, closure, or completion of anything. Projects take years, lab work is very slow (weeks to months), and any one day by itself it's hard to look back and see that I actually did anything useful. And many, many projects just don't work out. It's rare that I go home w/ a feeling of accomplishment for the day's work.
As a result, I enjoy having the automotive/handiman/fix-it/build-it guy projects, b/c I can look back and see "I did that", it helps fill that void and frustration I get on a daily basis at work.
I suspect there are a lot of other guys in a similar boat.
 
Another item worth mentioning for a person's worth. I always try to work with a helper. Not every job is created equal but I've found I get 2.5 times as much done with 1 (equal) helper almost every time. Not just having an extra hand to hold something, the motivation factor gets a huge boost and a couple laughs for the day as well compared with being by myself. So the time is actually worth 2.5 times compared with me by myself. So with 1 equal helper, I can factor in what I am worth for that particular job and charge an extra 1.5x for the work and it pays me back more than the gas and travel time and usually a lunch thrown in for the day.
 
this is GREAT discussion!! Personally since I work at home in my own shop for 7-8 years now full time, i Charge 40p/h normally, 50p/h if it's not a Jeep and it's a real pain big job BUT having that said, i always keep the customer in mind first before i do money. My business was started when i left dealerships and shops cause i got tired of seeing people getting ripped off and abused/taken advantage of and being forced to do so. I quit my last job at a shop and it was a good one at that, but to Sever God and to Sever Man does not go good together. Man does things for personal gain, God's Men do things for His Glory, His Kingdom, His Goodness, and for His People and Purpose which is to help those in need and to be fair at the best that we are able to be. I have never gone hungry, homeless, without a car, without bills being paid, or without having at least one leisure date with the family once a month so God provides my needs according to His desires not mine. I LOVE MY FREE TIME and I HAVE LOTS OF IT ON PURPOSE: i turn away work when i get too busy because i like my time with the wife, the kids, the home, the yard, My Jeep, My truck, and to go out and enjoy the parks/picnics/dates. I tell many customers who admire what i have as far as lifestyle and location and the "Freedom" life that i live but i tell them all the time,...it comes with sacrafice though...i give/gave up bigger income to have this freedom life but in the end it's what brings me joy and true happiness. I've never desired to have the American Dream but rather focus on being good, wholesome, humble, appreciative, helping and kind to others and that has taken me and my family in life farther than any stupid number would ever. Plus, heaven is my real treasure that i store up for and that's what counts. last but not least, because of my compassion for customers, i have been blessed Financially/Materialistically by customers in ways that i could never write enough words for and that to me is the key to successful business. I keep my business small on purpose so i can enjoy life cause the minute i focus more on the $, the closer i get to being just like everyone else and all my customers/friends know one thing about me and that's not who i am.
" True success and happiness is in the eyes and heart of the beholder, not what others see,think, believe or think they should be"
 
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