
DIY if possible (Public Board)
All they do is spray around the foundation of my house. There isn't anything intensive.
A perfect example where some DIY can save the day. Get the equipment and just do it. You will probably spend a bit more the first time and it will fully pay for itself in a year or two.
I did that with auto repair. I am not a gifted mechanic. But I got a gazillion tools, books, web sites and of course youtube. I've done brakes, tuneups, whatever random thing that breaks I can fix it, unless it requires highly specialized equipment like welding or taking apart the transmission. Brakes and worn out alternators seem to be most of the repairs that occur.
If I can't do it myself, I can intelligently talk to a mechanic and explain what's going on.
I have a spare vehicle I can drive when my primary is down.
Probably not an idea you are going to to engage, but that's the paradigm I am embracing on a number of fronts. Food growing is another example. Fight food prices.
Follow Nike's guidance on this matter.
Here is another glorious example of DIY
I fight electricity costs by heating with firewood which I find for free and then cut, split, season. It takes time and commitment and not for everyone but it's a great workout. I got so tired of firewood retailers shorting me in every way possible. They think the average consumer is an idiot. So if you order 3 cords of firewood, how the hell do you know you are getting 3 and not 2.5 cords? If they dump the huge pile in your driveway, it's impossible to tell. If you ask them to stack it, they will stack so it looks like 3 cords.
When I got good at stacking and estimating how much firewood I got, they would short me by including some non-hardwood junk. When I got good at detecting that, they would throw in stuff that was not completely seasoned. When I figured out how to detect non-seasoned stuff, they would sometimes get lazy and throw in improperly cut chunks which wouldn't fit.. Every time I ordered firewood, I got one or more of the above permutations, I got fed up with it and just started DIY.
Sometimes people will pay to remove wood.
There are people who do it right and then charge $450 per cord so it's cheaper to use the electric. The days of $50 firewood in your 8' pickup truck bed are gone. It's obnoxiously expensive.
I know the above it's not for you but just saying. You are not going to crawl under a pickup truck with a wrench or swing an ax. I get that. But if you can't DIY just have to deal with the trainload of BS.
As for the economic aspect of it, the prices are not going up, the 'dollar' is going down. Coke hasn't become more rare or difficult to produce. It's clearly the unit prices are denominated in.
Craigslist labor gigs have gone from $5 to $7. What? It's just bits and bytes in a database. A perfect example of the currency devaluation.
(Except in the case of autos and maybe real estate, these have genuinely gone up on top of the 'dollar' decline).
it's hard to tell if the item has gone up in price or if the currency has gone down or both.
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I Am Lost: I've gone to look for myself. If I should return before I get back, please ask me to wait.