The WAY to WOW Shows
Outsource or DIY?
July 16, 2025
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:02] Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to People Making Money. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and I'm here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about job hunting, starting and building a business, and building wealth. And so today, uh, I'm going to be talking about whether you should outsource or do things yourself,

[0:38] right? This is the the constant um dilemma in which we find ourselves, right? Um, should we just do everything ourselves because it costs money to hire someone else to do it in most at least in most cases or do we make the investment in bringing someone else in to do certain things um and and and pay that price but hopefully uh you know live a a a more productive a more um financially successful life or just a a

[1:15] easier your life as a result of of having other people do things for us. So, in thinking about uh the topic for today's show. So, I I basically broke down situations into three categories. Um and and those categories are basically these are the things you should pay for help. These are the things where it depends on the situation and the these are the things where under 99% of the circumstances you should you should not pay for help.

[1:50] Okay? And so I'm going to I'm just going to go through these. This is not an exhaustive list. It's to give you some food for thought as you consider this particular issue in your life. Uh now you may say, "Well, it's not relevant to me. I don't make enough money to hire people." But the fact of the matter is um a lot of the hiring we do isn't actually hiring people. Uh it's it's subscriptions and and and things like that as as we'll get into as I'll get into uh you know as the show moves on. Uh and so even if you're thinking of

[2:26] yourself as well I'm not you know I don't I don't make enough money. I'm not wealthy enough to hire a bunch of staff. uh th this this issue is still it's relevant to all of our lives is is really what it comes down to. Okay. So, uh let's let's start with the categories where you probably should be um looking to offload them um and and get someone else or something else to do it. Okay. So the first the first thing is is sort of uh lowle leverage tasks

[3:01] whether it's in our business or our uh professional lives. So these are these this is timeconuming work. It's repetitive. Uh it it it it is not uh doesn't require uh skill or at least uh any appreciable degree of skill. So these are the kind of things we want to take off our shoulders so that we can focus on higher value activities. So it could be something as simple as cleaning our house or apartment. It could be the

[3:37] kind of admin work that we have for our business. Um it you know filing papers or or even keeping our online files straightened out. Okay. It it could be you know tech support any anything of an administrative nature. We want to cons first of all the first thing to do is consider or is to think about does this really even need to be done at all because a lot of administrative work is actually busy work and it can and and you can dispense with it and that that will not

[4:14] negatively impact your life. In fact, it will probably positively impact your life. So, you know, a a lot of what secretaries used to do, I I know we don't use that word very much anymore. Um, but that's why I'm using it here because now they call them, you know, admin, we call them administrative assistants or whatever. A lot of what a per that person uh used to do is make sure that pardon me.

[4:49] So a lot of what a secretary used to do is make sure that we're getting done the tasks that we need to get done that we're focused on the most important tasks. Okay, they would they basically would help us keep on track. Well, today an app an app as simple as Apple reminders can do that and and in many ways can do it more effectively than a secretary has. So, if you were to able to see my desktop, you would see uh right here on this side, I have Apple

[5:24] reminders. And I have my reminders separated into one, two, three, four, I don't know, it looks like about 12 to 15 lists. And within them, there's a total of 173 tasks. Like, oh my gosh. Okay. But these are tasks not to do every day. Uh some of them are tasks that are repeated daily. Some of them are repeated every weekday. Some of them are repeated monthly or quarterly. Some of them come

[5:59] up just once a year. Okay. So, for example, I have a reminder to put out my flag on Labor Day and take it back in in the evening. So, that's two of them, right? not not a big deal, but it's something that it's that it's important for me to do to take a minute to mark the day and so I put a reminder in it. Uh, you know, to pay an administrative assistant or secretary to remind me of that is a needless expense. Um, on the other hand, I don't want to forget doing it. And what I found is when I just rely on my memory, I forget to do it. and I

[6:36] don't want to have someone else do it because I want to take that moment to mark a particular important holiday. Right? So, but the reality is a tool like uh like reminders is so efficient at helping us keep on track because I can also I can set priorities for tasks high, medium, low. Okay? in as I look at my calendar at this moment. I have no high priority tasks. I have 2 4 6 8 10. I have 10 medium priority tasks and then

[7:12] another I guess it's not 10. I've got eight. 1 2 3 four five six seven eight. I have nine uh medium priority tasks and six low priority tasks. Right? And that way I can I can keep on track and I know what which are more important than the others. Also when I need to take a little break and just sort of you know put my mind let let my mind rest for a couple minutes so then I can refocus on the next important matter I can do one of the lower low priority tasks. Um all

[7:47] of which are for my personal benefit. There's no these aren't admin things. They're things I I need to do. Uh, one of them is is read a little bit of poetry just to, you know, focus me um on uh things outside of of what I normally am involved with. Um, so things like that. There's a couple of physical movement things that I do during the day. Again, I I tend I, as you may notice, I'm always standing up, right? So, it's it's better to stand up than to be sitting down, but I tend to stand in one place for hours at a time, which is

[8:24] not particularly good. So, I I schedule in a couple of physical tasks to move myself, right? So, but the nice thing about reminders is it's essentially free. So, by taking a few moments, you know, each day to keep it up to date, I'm good to go and I'm essentially delegating the task of keeping me on track to reminders. Uh, so it's not costing me anything while it is reducing the time I have to take to be sitting there and think, okay, what do I need to do next? Wait, what what what has to be done today that's important, right?

[8:59] Don't have to worry waste time doing that. Okay. So um so the first thing we want to think about is delegating you know low value low um uh um uh knowledge type of tasks. Okay. So that's that's something we should pay for. On kind of the opposite end is we should pay for uh expertise when the stakes are high. So, if we're dealing with a legal matter or an uh our

[9:34] our taxes or some kind of major business decision, okay, where if we make a mistake, the cost could be very high. So, at that point, we definitely again want to pay for those tasks, okay? Because it could cost us even more if we don't have that expertise. Okay? Now obviously uh uh you know hiring a lawyer or an accountant is much more expensive than for example hiring um um a VA a virtual

[10:10] assistant maybe to do some of the routine administrative tasks that we have. Okay. Uh, but the potential savings by having an expert advise us is so high, it's worth it to to pay the lawyers or accountants fees. Okay? And and that's one of the reasons why they get paid so much is because their advice has has value in terms of in essence saving us money down the road. So, generally speaking, a an accountant who's competent in filing taxes should

[10:47] be able to save you more in taxes than his fee costs in for preparing your tax return. Okay? And when you think about it, even if you're using some sort of software uh for preparing taxes, which a lot of accountants do as well, still you're you're not you you're not preparing tens, dozens, hundreds of tax returns each year. And so you are just not going to know as much about the ins and outs of tax preparation, tax

[11:22] planning, tax savings that an accountant will. And so it makes sense to have an accountant do that. Now, you may say, well, I have very straightforward finances. I get my paycheck. I don't own a house. I just take the standard deduction. Okay. Well, you know, maybe in that case, you don't need uh uh you know, a CPA to uh prepare your taxes. That that may be okay. But if you own a business, okay, even if it's a sole proprietorship where you're going to file a schedule C, once your taxes are at that level, I I strongly recommend

[11:59] you consider hiring an accountant because again, that accountant will save you more money in taxes than the accountant is is is likely to cost you in in fees. I know that's that's certainly the case with my accountant and and I've been doing this for literally decades, but he's been an accountant for a little bit longer than I've been a businessman and he does accounting tax preparation all the time, you know, day in and day out, whereas I I don't engage with it that frequently.

[12:34] Okay? So, you want to avoid costly errors. You want to identify hidden opportunities and expert advice in highstakes decisions will help you do that. So that is another area where you should pay for help rather than do it yourself. Okay. And then finally, you know, I I mentioned this I think at the beginning. Look, the fact of the matter is all in the end all we have is the is is time. Okay? We have a limited amount of time in this world. Okay? something like uh you know I don't know between maybe

[13:10] 80 and and 100 years these days it seems like people are living longer. Okay. And so how we use that time is one of the most crucial decisions we can make. So in in a situation where the cost to buy help is less than what we could earn in the same amount of time it would take us to perform that task. That's when we should probably be looking to pay someone to do

[13:47] it. Now, this is where it can get a little bit difficult because you may be able to do a task and it takes you 15 minutes. Okay? Uh or let's let's let's use a different example. Let's say half an hour. There's a task you can do. It takes you a half an hour. Okay? And let's say that uh you you earn $100,000 a year, which is about $2,000 a week. Okay. And let's just take a simple example. You work uh 50 hours a week.

[14:24] Okay. And so at $2,000 a week, okay, you're making $40 an hour. So if a task c um takes you a half an hour, okay, in that same half an hour, you can earn $20. Okay. So the question of whether you should then get someone else to take care of that task depends on how quickly can they do it and how much do they charge. Okay. So

[14:59] if if someone charge if it costs you $15 an hour to hire someone and it takes them 45 minutes to do the task. Okay. So that's 3/4 of an hour. So 3/4 of 15 is $750, $1050, $11.25. So even though it takes them longer, the cost is only $11.25. Whereas while you can do it in less

[15:34] time, 30 minutes rather than 45, 30 minutes of your time is worth $20. So even though it would take someone you hire less time to do it, the cost is roughly half of what you could earn in the same time period. So you should probably, you know, get hire someone to take care of that task. Okay? Now, if it would take someone else, let's say you're paying, you have someone who again, you're paying them $15 an hour, and let's say that it would take them an

[16:09] hour and a half to do the task that you can do in a half an hour. So again, half an hour of your time, $20, an hour and a half at $15 an hour is $2250. Okay? So now it doesn't make sense to get help to do that task because the cost to do the ta to do the task is higher than you could do it yourself. Okay? Now it's pretty close. It's only a little bit more expensive. And you may decide, well, maybe it takes them an hour and a half for the first couple of times they do it, but long term they're going to reduce the time it takes them. So, I know I'm going to have to invest a

[16:45] little bit extra upfront, but over the long term, the cost for me to have someone do this task is going to be lower than what I could earn in that time. And if that's the case, then, you know, looking at a a a longer uh time frame, it still makes sense to get someone to do the task. Okay? So we don't want to necessarily look at these issues in isolation like what will it cost just the first time I have it done but it you know sometimes it takes people time to get up to speed. The other sort of fallacy in this is

[17:22] well since I would have to train the person and that takes my time uh I'm not going to train the person. I don't want to take my time. I'm just going to keep doing it. The problem with that is eventually we've got more than we can do. Okay. So often times we will have to invest some of our time which means our costs will go up a little bit in transferring a particular task to someone else. Okay? But in the long run that's better. Why is it better? Because number one we're going

[17:58] to take that task off our plate. Number two, we're going to learn how to delegate and how to delegate ever more efficiently, right? And and that's that's a very important skill for all of us to learn. Okay? So uh I'm trying to think of of of an example of oh so uh working with uh um one of my colleagues uh yesterday uh an issue came up and she asked me you know how should how should I handle this and I said well what do

[18:34] you think and she said well you know x y and z and we we went through it we we spent probably about 15 or 20 minutes discussing the issue knew until she she got to the point where she felt she had a good resolution for it. And then I explained to her, my goal is for you to be comfortable making these kind of decisions yourself without my intervention because as you see, you know, you knew more about the issues than I did. You're in a better place to make the decision. Okay? And so it's

[19:09] it's not a good use of my time for her to relay all the information to me for me to make the decision and then she goes and executes the decision. She already has all the information. This what I need to do is help her gain the confidence that that how she thinks matters through is absolutely appropriate. And so then she can work more efficiently and I can work more efficiently. Right. So this is a kind of these are the kind of factors we we should look at when the the sort of the

[19:46] bias if you will is toward getting someone to help with a particular task. Okay. So those are when you should pay for help. That's that's the first uh category. Okay. Let's take a break. When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't add to your stress. Magnum Properties specializes in probate and trust real estate management. We handle the complexities while you focus on what matters most. From property maintenance

[20:22] to tenant relations, from legal compliance to maximizing value, we're your trusted partner through every step. Magnum Properties, Inc. turning property challenges into peace of mind. Call us today at 2132644396 or visit magnumprops.com. Okay, this is this is People Making Money and I'm your host Kevin Bemel and we're talking about when you should outsource and when you should do tasks

[20:57] yourself. And so, uh, I started out by talking about situations where almost for sure you should pay for help. So, when it's very low value, administrative, low expertise type uh, tasks, those you should, you know, do your best to offload onto either an app or some, you know, someone to help you. And then the flip side is when there's very high stakes, okay, where making a mistake could be very costly. Again, you want to hire help to help you make that

[21:32] decision, to advise you make that decision. And and the general principle is if the cost of hiring someone to do a task is less than the cost for you to do the task, then you should outsource it. Okay? while keeping in mind that the initially the cost to outsource may be higher. Okay, but as long as over the long run and after after you know a sort of break-in period or transition period it'll be less costly that's really what's important. Okay, so now let's look at the next category. So so the

[22:09] next category is it depends on the situation. So let's let's this is let's let's talk more in a business context here. So let's say you're working on your business um and you're looking to grow it quickly, scale it up or launch a new venture. Uh so hiring people may be the only way to be able to do that. Okay. So the question then comes down to is by hiring a lot of people what will the cost of that be relative

[22:45] to what you would expect the return on that larger cost that larger investment be. Okay. So, uh let's say that current you're currently um uh your um your your the return the percentage return on your business um is uh let's say it's 10%. Okay. Um, and when I say 10% on on the capital invested, etc. re return on assets, if

[23:21] you will. Okay, 10%. Um, and let's or and and let's or or we could also look at it from the standpoint of um 10% of your revenue ends up being profit. Let's look at it that way. That's a little that's a little clear. Okay. So let's say right now out of your gross revenue 10% flows through the bottom line after all expenses. Okay? And let's say you want to you want to you want to enlarge your business which is going to require hiring a lot more people. Okay? So you're going to be

[23:56] expanding your personnel cost. Maybe you're going to have to get uh more space. um there's going to be more um uh equipment necessary depending on what the business is etc. Okay. So let's say that uh your your costs are going to double. All right. So let's take a business that currently is making a million dollars and we said that it has a uh 10% of the gross revenue uh flows through to profits. That means the 10 uh million in revenue, $900,000 in

[24:33] expenses, $100,000 in profit. All right? And now the business wants to scale up. So in order to do that, let's say it needs to take on another uh $400,000 in expenses for for personnel, etc. Okay. So now expenses are $1.3 million. Obviously, if revenue stays at a million dollar, okay, now the business is going to be losing $300,000 a year. So, your return on investment basically is is negative. Okay, so in order for that

[25:10] $400,000 investment to be worthwhile, okay, minimally, right, revenue is going to have to go up to $1.4 million. However, if it only goes up to $1.4 4 million. You're make you're still making $100,000 in profit a year, but now that $100,000 is roughly uh 7% of revenue, not 10% of revenue. Okay? So, your return has gone down. So, in order to keep your return on investment

[25:49] the same as it was before, okay, your revenue would actually have to increase to um $1,430,000. Okay. So, at 1,430,000 expenses of $1.3 million. So, now you have a profit of $130,000. Well, actually, it's got to be I'm sorry. Uh, it's got to be a little bit more than that. It's got to be about I'm trying to do the math in my head. It's going to have to be about a million

[26:27] million five. No, it's going to be 200,000. So, about a million470 460 somewhere around in there. Yeah, about a million. Let's see. three four. Yeah. 470. Okay. So, your your revenue is going to have to increase to $1,470,000. Okay. If you subtract $1,300,000 from that, so now your your um profit is uh about $170,000. Oops. No. See, I still did it too high.

[27:03] Why am I off here? 1 million million430 million440 50 Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, your revenue needs to be about $1,450,000. Okay. So, if you have revenue of a, $450,000, you subtract a, $300,000 from that. Your profit is about $150,000, which is pretty close to 10%. Okay. So, to a certain extent, your return on

[27:38] investment hasn't gone up any. You're still at a 10% return on investment. You are making a little bit more than before. Uh you're making um uh $50,000 in ex in additional profit, but your business has not become any more profitable. The rate of profit is still the same. So, if you're going to increase your expenses by $400,000, you can see that you probably need to increase your revenue by at least $500,000 to really get, you know, a higher

[28:15] profitability out of the business. Okay? And so, that's why it depends on the situation, right? Are you going do you really think you're going to be able to increase your revenue by 50%. Even though you're increasing your expenses by only about 44%. Okay, you say, "Wait, I should just be able to increase my revenue by 44%." No, it it doesn't. It just doesn't the math doesn't work out that way. Okay, so this this is where it really just

[28:50] depends on the situation. Is there demand for your product and services? How quickly will you be able to take advantage of that demand? Right? And and and how quickly after you hire new people, will they get up to speed and become productive? Right? All it's it's hard to say. It's it's all going to be in in the end it's going to be a judgment call and sometimes you're going to make make the right call and sometimes you're not going to make the right call. Okay. So um that that a situation like that where you're looking for example to scale your business

[29:25] that's that's that depends on the the details of the market climate the economy your specific business uh and and the people that you hire. Okay. So that's one situ that's a that's a situation where it depends. Okay. Another one is where you're paying for peace of mind. Okay. So, some services are not going to generate uh wealth directly, nor are they necessarily going to um prevent you from making a very uh bad

[30:02] decision. Um, so for example, um, when I was talking in the first category about hiring an accountant to do your taxes, well, in most cases, that accountant's fee is going to be in essence returned to you by what the accountant saves you in taxes. Okay? So although the accountant isn't really making you any money per se, they're really not costing you any money either um, be because of the savings they generate. But let's take an a situation where maybe you're you're you you you know pay for an insurance broker services, right? So um

[30:41] in many cases the broker is not going to get you a lower premium on your insurance, especially if you live in California these days, lower premiums are virtually impossible to find. Okay? But what you are doing hopefully in working with an insurance professional is working with someone who can give you peace of mind uh reduce the sense of the risks that you may have in life and so you'll sleep better, you'll be able to focus better on your business and your family. Okay? So, in that case, although

[31:16] you're not really going to be saving any money, okay, uh it it may still be worthwhile because your overall life will be better. And that really is going to come down to a pretty personal decision. So, it's not clear-cut at all. It has to do with how much risk you can comfortably tolerate. It has to do with how much knowledge you have about the particular area. um for which you're thinking about hiring some expertise, financial planning, security, again, insurance,

[31:51] right? These kinds of things. Some of us have a lot of expertise even though we may not do them professionally and others, you know, less so. and and so um having the um emotional well-being, having a sense that you're managing risk well that you may value that more than the cost for in essence outsourcing these decisions or at least these processes and and if that's the case then it it may make sense for you to outsource them but it's going to be

[32:27] situation dependent. Okay. So, you know, again, this is this is this is in the gray area between the two categories I'm talking about, and you'll you'll have to decide. Okay. All right. And then the third one is the cost to is whether you want to bear the cost to develop your own skills versus outsourcing them. Okay? And this may seem like a um

[33:02] solely a professional issue, but it can be relevant to our personal lives as well. So I I I believe that the best investments we can make are the investments we make in ourselves. Okay? We should always be learning and not just business or professional related skills. We should be learning more about how to have good relationships. We should be learning more about how to live a healthy life. We should be learning more about how to connect with God. All of these things are important and we can't outsource

[33:39] those. We can't out outsource learning to other people. So we've got to strike a balance between the time we take for doing the learning ourselves that enhances us as a human being and a you know a a parent, a spouse, a friend um and and a professional or a businessman um versus other areas where it's not efficient for us to learn how to do things. So I'll I'll give you a few examples. When I was a kid, uh, we had a

[34:14] Rambler station wagon. I loved that car. So did my dad. And my dad did almost all the routine maintenance on that car. And I helped him. And we could. We changed the oil. We changed spark plugs. We changed the brake pads one time. Okay. We did a lot of work on that car. Now, this was in the 1960s and engines were much simpler than they are today. and there was a lot more room for working under the hood and all those kind of things. The tools to do so were fairly simple and so we could do it and

[34:49] it was an opportunity for my dad to spend time with me, for me to learn things from my dad. Um I think from my dad's standpoint to learn something that men ought to know, you know, these kind of things. And it was it was it was really good. And um even though um it may have been less expensive for my dad to have a mechanic service the car uh he I think he made the right decision in not outsourcing it because of how it helped us build our relationship. Okay. But today if I had a son which I don't

[35:25] I I would not you know do automobile maintenance with my son. Cars are way too complicated, far too difficult to to work on, you know, under the hood, so to speak. The tools for doing so are very expensive, very complex, computers, all this kind of stuff. I'm just not and it and there's for me to learn how to do it. It it's it's far too much time es especially for what I could how I and and you know my you know my son that I don't have you know could benefit from it or if if my daughter

[36:00] were interested in learning such things which I I don't think she is right it it's not that there's no concurrent benefit there for doing that. Okay. The flip side is uh where it does make sense for me to invest in my own education is in learning how to use large language models so-called AIS whether it's chat GPT perplexity claude okay I I use all three of those from time to time because they all seem to have kind of their

[36:35] areas where they're best and this is something that's important because it's going to become it is rapidly becoming such a critical productivity tool in business but also in personal life. Okay. So what it allows me to uh learn and how quickly I can learn it. Okay. Is a big benefit to me when I'm faced with a situation be it professional or personal where I don't know the answer to something and having

[37:10] the answer quickly could be a big benefit. Okay. So it does not make sense for me to outsource use of AI to someone else. Okay. This is something I need to invest in myself in learning. Now once I learn how to use it effectively then I can outsource its use to other people and I'll give you an example. I was in a meeting yesterday talking with a group of people and one of the people wanted to you know perform a particular task and we were talking

[37:46] about how best to do it and and u one of the people in the meeting said you know what here's here's the best way to do it. go on chat GPT and ask them the following question and and that will give you the answer, right? And he knew that because he's been engaged in it was my friend Bill Gross. Um he he he can say that because like me, Bill has been engaged in learning the power of large language models, right? and we talk about it on a pretty pretty regular basis, the kind of tasks that we're doing, activities we're

[38:22] doing, and how they work and don't work and that kind of thing. And and so we are now beginning to get to the point where having learned enough about it, we can start outsourcing the use of AI and it makes us more efficient and it makes the people with whom we're dealing more efficient as well. And it makes them more autonomous, which is good, right? Autonomy is a good thing, right? The more we can empower the people with whom we work or with whom we have relationships, uh, generally speaking, the better that

[38:58] is, right? Because then they can get their whatever done and there's more time for us all to be together and and talk about and work on important issues, important matters. That's what I mean by autonomy is good, right? autonomy in in in in sort of getting the the the the tasks of life done. That's good, right? And then we can come together and work on the real important aspects of life, be it personal or professional. So investing in skill development versus versus outsourcing that's a again situation dependent question and we just

[39:35] we have to consider well you know what are the pros and cons and then make make the best decision that we can. Okay. Uh two more um things I want to talk about and these are in the category of when you should not pay for help. Okay. So, first of all, don't pay for help that you will not use. Okay? Now, we see this a lot when we're hiring non-people help. Okay? So, we have subscriptions to all kinds of things.

[40:10] Okay? And how many of them do we really use or use on a regular basis? Right? So, I was just talking about AI. uh if you have an AI subscription, are you really using it enough that it makes sense for you to be paying for a subscription to it? I know for myself uh although occasionally I hit the limit on chat GPT 4.0 usage. Uh there's always a lower level chat GPT uh LLM that I can use and I can also

[40:45] switch to a different LLM. So, I don't pay for any uh any AI model usage. It's not it's not a productive way for me to spend my money. I don't need it right now. And in fact, periodically, I go through the various uh subscriptions that I have and and I think about, do I really need this? Okay, I did that most recently. It was I January, February, I think it was. And I realized I had I had two internet service I mean two Wi-Fi providers and um the the my cell phone

[41:23] provider was way too expensive and I got rid of another a subscription to another thing and I I realized I was spending a lot of money on subscriptions and I wasn't using them or was at least wasn't using them at the level that uh it really made sense. Oh, so I I had a subscription to Sling for many years and the reason really was because I like watching old movies and that was the only way I had access to Turner classic movies. So, and then I was in the hospital um about uh a year ago, a little over a

[41:59] year ago now. And in the hospital, um, they they had these they were basically iPads and and I could watch, um, it was a service like TubeBu. I forget what it's called now, but it's a free service. And I realized that I could see lots of old movies on a free service like TubeBu, and I didn't need to be paying $50 or $60 a month, whatever uh, Sling cost me. And so I got rid of it. And and frankly, I found Turner Classic movies kind of annoying because the main host

[42:37] likes to espouse his politics. And I don't want to hear about politics when I want to watch an old movie. I just want to watch an old movie and enjoy it. So my leisure time, I I I don't want to be dealing with business. I don't want to be dealing with politics. I just want to enjoy, right? So, uh, I I got rid of that service because and and what I did was I put it on pause for three months to see if I missed it and I didn't. So, then I just canceled it. Right? So, there's lots of ways that we're paying for help. Uh, especially like I said with these subscriptions that where it's

[43:12] really not an economic decision to do so. And and now before I sign up for any kind of subscription service, I give it a lot of thought. And then periodically I go through my credit card bill and I look, you know, what am I paying for? Do I still need these things? Although now the number is so small that I think there's only about four or something that I that I pay for, right? And you know, whether it's streaming services or whatever, like my friends keep asking me, um, oh, have you seen such and such? No. Oh, it's on Netflix. I don't have

[43:48] Netflix. Oh, you got to get Netflix. Right. But then the next thing they tell me about, I've got to get, you know, some other streaming service to watch it. It's like, I don't want I don't want to pay for streaming services. First of all, I don't watch enough media to make it uh economic. And second of all, I I don't I don't want to bear the expense and I don't want to have I don't want to feel compelled to watch a bunch of stuff um because I'm spending money on it, right? So, um don't pay for what you won't use. Okay, that's number one. And then the last thing is don't pay for

[44:24] what amounts to status driven delegation. Right? So, here in Los Angeles, I live in West LA just south of Beverly Hills. Right? It's a pretty, you know, wealthy area in which to live. And when I go to the dry cleaners, I go to my cleaners, I would say about half the people who show up there are personal assistants, right? They're picking up and dropping off the clothes for somebody else. And I'm always cur I've never done this because it's none of my business, but I I want to ask

[44:59] them, who do you work for and how much do they really make? Okay? Because I know for myself and I can't possibly afford, you know, whatever it costs, $50,000 a year for a professional assistant. And even if I could, I wouldn't pay it because I would be struggling for ways to really have that person be productive, right? Yes, it takes me an hour and a half to go to my cleaners because I go to a cleaners that's not particularly close to my house. Um, but one of the reasons I go there is because the woman

[45:36] who owns the cleaners and I are friends. It gives us a chance to talk and catch up. I only go once a month. And so it's a little, again, it's a break in my day. It's down in Santa Monica, so I get to see the ocean while I'm there. And and so it's kind of a pleasant interlude uh that I do uh one Friday morning a month. Okay. So, I think we really want to be careful about uh expenses that are really more like vanity expenses than they are

[46:11] uh or vanity outsourcing, we'll call it, than they are really justified. You know, look, if you're making a million dollars a year, you know, okay, so you maybe you are going to hire a personal assistant. They're going to run all kinds of chores. They're going to do your grocery shopping. They're going to pick up your dry cleaning. They're going to, I don't know, keep your workspace organized. Maybe they're going to pick up your children from school. Although I personally think that's a bad idea. I think no matter how successful parents are, they should be picking up their children from school. Um, but you you may choose to do that and there may be

[46:48] enough for them to do that it's worthwhile for them to do it. And clearly if you're making a million dollars a year, right? So million dollar uh divided by 10 is $100,000. You're making $20,000 a week. Okay? So you're making around $400 an hour. Okay? So you know to pay someone, you know, what amounts to what? $20 an hour to do stuff that you know it's a it's a 5% of of your income. Okay. So even if

[47:25] even if they're sitting around for a certain amount of time, you know, each each day, maybe that's fine because it gives you peace of mind to know that there's someone there who can, you know, oh, I need you to take care of this. Please go do it kind of thing. Okay? But that's somebody who's very, you know, ve making a lot of money and and can afford to do that. For most of us, we can't. Even VAS, okay, we think of them and they're very and there are there are inexpensive VAS. you can hire them in, you know, the Philippines or Bangladesh or whatever. They work for a lot less

[48:00] money than someone in the United States would. Uh, still, I think the ratio of cost for the VA to what you make has to be pretty high. Uh, if if they're hired on a full-time basis. Now, if they're hired on a task basis, then that's probably fine. But to have that kind of full-time help, it it it can very quickly end up being an inefficient use of resources. Okay, so those are my thoughts on outsourcing versus do-it-yourself. Again, the three categories, where you should pay for

[48:36] help, where it's situation dependent, and where you should not pay for help. start out by figuring out into which category a particular uh issue may fall and then work from there to figure it out. So I thank you very much for joining me today. Always a pleasure especially to see my uh live live viewers. Tomorrow at 5:00 p p.m. Pacific time is my show Jiggers's Place. We'll have a cocktail and a smoo as we head toward the end of the week. And then next week on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific

[49:12] time is my show uh Trust and Estates Weekly. On Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show Business Lessons from the Military. And then a week from today, I'll be back for the next edition of People Making Money. So again, thanks so much. Would love to hear, by the way, your comments, thoughts on this subject. All the links to my social media will be in the show notes when it posts on YouTube. And if you if you like the show, um I I' I'd sure appreciate it if you would tell a friend or family member about it and and maybe they'll find

[49:47] something to benefit them as well. And and I'd really would appreciate if you help spread the word. So, thanks again for watching or listening. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do. Marie darling, you are my belt.