Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

sidsavara.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#61

Post by sidsavara »

netcan wrote: post #60
icey wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this any different than hiring a personal chef? Or a housekeeper? I mean; people have been doing this for centuries, it's just becoming more accessible now.

Is it? A full time servant is common in poorer parts of the world. I assume that accessibility has to do with wage differences. If you make 5X ph what a maid charges, you can afford it easily & it makes good sense. If you make 1.5X, not so easily. Wage inequality will make this accessible.

I think part of it is not just wage inequality, it's efficiency: I estimate she is actually making $30-40 an hour by batching it, and because she is likely faster than I am (since I am relatively poor at cooking). On my end, it's costing me relatively little per hour for how much time I am saving

I would classify it more as recognizing the comparative advantage she has.

Even though I cost a lot to hire for a web project, even someone earning less than me would be better off hiring me than trying to build their own plugins for their CMS - it might take me an hour, and they can pay me with lets say 2 hours of their work. Or, they can struggle and spend 20 hours of their time trying to get it working. This is a real life example - they hired me for their second project, and were very happy based on the time they saved versus having their inexperienced guy do it. Of course, there is an argument to be made that having their inexperienced guy do the work builds knowledge capital, but I'm talking about strict efficiency here.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#62

Post by netcan »

sidsavara wrote: post #61
netcan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? A full time servant is common in poorer parts of the world. I assume that accessibility has to do with wage differences. If you make 5X ph what a maid charges, you can afford it easily & it makes good sense. If you make 1.5X, not so easily. Wage inequality will make this accessible.

I think part of it is not just wage inequality, it's efficiency: I estimate she is actually making $30-40 an hour by batching it, and because she is likely faster than I am (since I am relatively poor at cooking). On my end, it's costing me relatively little per hour for how much time I am saving I would classify it more as recognizing the comparative advantage she has. Even though I cost a lot to hire for a web proj…

That is true. You also claimed to be saving 10 hours per week while paying for only four. I think that'd be an expected gain.

but all that's very theoretical..

In reality, you're not taking out time from web designing to cook, are you?

This kind of resource allocation exists in B2B, no brainer. You get hired for web design. You hire a bookkeeper. But in our personal lives, it doesn't happen as often. You get to spend more time watching TV or painting in exchange for money. You will rarely find someone willing to pay their hourly wage to save an hour of non-work chores. People are willing to pay for time but only at a much discounted rate.

Take yourself as an example. Assuming you earn $45ph web designing. You are 'saving' $450 (10 hrs) by not cooking. You are paying $60 for this - bargain. Would you pay $449 for this service? How about $225.

Generally speaking businesses would probably say yes while individuals would say no.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#63

Post by DabAsteroid »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #38
litewulf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to point out that not all hours of the day are spent "generating value".

If your time is worth $30 per hour, but you enjoy cleaning enough that you aren't willing to pay $10 per hour for it, you're implying that you would sacrifice $20 per hour to clean. So when you retire, will you pay people that much for the chance to clean their house?

When one does occasional menial-work oneself:

1. It is tax free, and therefore worth somewhat more.

2. It is supervision-cost free, and therefore worth somewhat more.

3. It is hiring-cost free, and therefore worth somewhat more.

4. It doesn't show up as a business expense, otherwise potentially costing thousands or millions of dollars at exit.

5. It is not necessarily done as slowly or as sloppily as by the typical $10/hr worker. It might very well be done four times as fast.

6. The security risk/cost of having a once-in-a-while worker (who could be casing the place, or spying, or actively stealing while there {a lot of thieves admit they get car-keys this way}) in one's home or business is avoided.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#64

Post by racecar789 »

I buy TV dinners for every day of the week (single guy). It saves a lot of time and prep only takes 5:28 minutes. Cost is $3.33 per dinner ($23.31wk).

To drive costs down further I am saving the plastic trays from the packages and plan on making my own TV dinners in batches (30 at a time).

I used to eat them with disposable silverware, plates and cups to save time dish washing but found this to be a little too costly (compared to washing for free).

There are healthy packages out there to choose from.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#65

Post by sidsavara »

netcan wrote: post #62
sidsavara wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it is not just wage inequality, it's efficiency: I estimate she is actually making $30-40 an hour by batching it, and because she is likely faster than I am (since I am relatively poor at cooking). On my end, it's costing me relatively little per hour for how much time I am saving I would classify it more as recognizing the comparative advantage she has. Even though I cost a lot to hire for a web proj…

That is true. You also claimed to be saving 10 hours per week while paying for only four. I think that'd be an expected gain. but all that's very theoretical.. In reality, you're not taking out time from web designing to cook, are you? This kind of resource allocation exists in B2B, no brainer. You get hired for web design. You hire a bookkeeper. But in our personal lives, it doesn't happen as often. You get to spend…

You bring up an interesting point about individuals versus businesses. I think one of the key differences here is that I don't want to work lots of overtime in order to make up the monetary difference to pay for food being delivered to my house - it comes out of the same bucket that eating out, movies etc would come out of. So in the end, it's true, I would have net more money if I cooked at home - but ~10 hours less time, regardless of hourly rate

I remember a friend of mine who would wash her car herself to save money. I know some people care for cars a lot and wash their car themselves because they enjoy it and they take pride in it - that's a whole separate class of utility and enjoyment. She was just washing it to keep it clean. She made well over 6 figures, and she could have driven it through a car wash for 7 bucks and have it done in 5 minutes. I remember reading an article that basically said we get attached to things we have - including money, and we value it more because it is ours. Perhaps that also partially accounts for the psychological disconnect between the way businesses act (when it's the company's money, and not their own) versus individuals.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#66

Post by delackner »

orib wrote: post #58
corentin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, you could hire your neighbor's kid to maw your lawn and stuff like that.

For some reason that typo gave me a rather amusing mental image of the neighbor's kid trying to eat your lawn ("shove it in his maw"). Yeah. Stupid brain making connections where they don't exist.

Isn't one of the main definitions of creativity the making of connections between hitherto unconnected things?

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#67

Post by jonknee »

racecar789 wrote: post #64

I buy TV dinners for every day of the week (single guy). It saves a lot of time and prep only takes 5:28 minutes. Cost is $3.33 per dinner ($23.31wk). To drive costs down further I am saving the plastic trays from the packages and plan on making my own TV dinners in batches (30 at a time). I used to eat them with disposable silverware, plates and cups to save time dish washing but found this to be a little too costly…

I chuckle at guys like you at the grocery checkout. Eat fresh food, it beats any "healthy packages" you can find.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#68

Post by jrockway »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #16

I've always wondered why laundry/maid service isn't more popular too. if your time is worth $30 an hour+ you lose money by doing menial chores such as laundry and cleaning.

I don't really like people lurking around my house, so wasting $30 of my own time cleaning the toilet is well worth it.

Actually, my Roomba does most of my cleaning. Yay for robots.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#69

Post by jrockway »

biohacker42 wrote: post #40

What's so interesting about this is that for $60 a week you can get a LOT of calories from fast food. But then you could be dead soon. In Europe you could east pretty healthy delicious food for about $60 a week easily. But America seems to lack a cheap + good + won't kill you food option. Like a whole market segment is not served. And Americans in general don't go out to eat like Europeans do. Either it's (to go) fas…

But America seems to lack a cheap + good + won't kill you food option. Either it's (to go) fast food, or an expensive sit down meal.

I live in America and regularly eat to-go sushi. Usually ends up at about $4.

Re: Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week

#70

Post by nick5768 »

mynameishere wrote: post #10
menloparkbum wrote: post #3

About half the time I wish I could outsource my job to someone on Craig's list for $15/hr so that I could spend more time cooking.

There was an hilarious dilbert strip which I can not find which had Dilbert washing his cubicle with a spray bottle and rag, dancing about having a great time, and then Alice shows up and says, "Okay, you've had the bottle long enough. It's my turn to pretend to be a janitor." It's not funny till you've been there: Mundane labor in the office [1] is strangely delightful compared to typing. [1] Not just janitorial wor…

I'll third this as well, for some reason I enjoyed vacuuming before close at Radioshack when I worked there. Normally I absolutely hate it.
Post reply on HN