5 things it's cheaper to do yourself

Paint your own house? That might be a bit much, but several everyday tasks can cost less if you take matters into your own hands.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

You can make a good argument for hiring out certain tasks because it frees your time or because the person you hire will do a better job.

In fact, people have. Author Timothy Ferriss turned the idea of outsourcing your life into a best-selling book, "The 4-Hour Workweek."

But when money is tight and you're looking for places to cut, some of the places you're outsourcing now should get a second look. Perhaps the cost-to-time-saved ratio isn't what you thought, or maybe your need for cash is so pressing it has to take a front seat to other considerations.

I polled folks on the Your Money message board for ways they've found to do it themselves and save money. I didn't agree with all the notions, as you'll see, and even when I did I included exceptions (the "yeah, buts").

Still, if you're looking for ways to save money, consider these:

Your daily bread

Despite some assertions to the contrary in "Is eating out cheaper than cooking?" the simplest and fastest way for most folks to cut their budgets is to stop outsourcing food preparation.

That means cooking meals at home -- and opting for raw ingredients over convenience foods. If the word "tray" is involved, the markup can be truly breathtaking.

My local grocery charges $30 for a tray of veggies and dip that will feed 12 to 16 people. I can reproduce the same tray, lettuce liner and all, with less than $10 of ingredients and about five minutes of rinsing and slicing.

And all those 100-calorie snack packs? A cute idea, a serious waste of money.

"Instead, buy a large bag and measure out a serving into smaller containers," advised poster "psugrl." "It is cheaper and makes less waste (I use reusable containers)."

Cooking doesn't have to be a big, fat, hairy deal. Bookstores and the Web are replete with cooking advice for those with attention spans of 30 minutes or less.

Yeah, but: Eating out occasionally is a lovely treat. And if the meal involves gazillions of exotic ingredients, takes all day to cook or requires skills that you don't have, it's far, far better to outsource it than subject yourself to a day of misery (and your guests to pie crust that's hard to distinguish from the pie pan).

Many home repairs and improvements

Just as painting isn't rocket science, neither are many minor household repairs, from fixing a leaky faucet to installing a dimmer switch.

What they take is time, some patience and a good how-to book. What you can save is, well, lots.

A few posters on the Your Money board said they painted interior rooms. Poster "agilemom" said her husband completed a much bigger job: He painted the exterior of their home last year.

"Finished in a weekend. Cost about $500 with supplies, but the estimates were in the range of $2,800," agilemom wrote.

And there's clearly some satisfaction involved. Poster "Snuggle Zach" has never had a handyman. He fixes everything around the house, "except the roof, because I am afraid of falling. . . . Saved thousands of dollars and job was done right, the first time."

Yeah, but: You have to consider safety and inertia.

I like the line that one poster draws between jobs worth attempting and those not:

"I am willing to take on my own home repairs when there is no risk of death (I won't mess with electrical stuff)," "WeWillBackGowron" wrote, "and/or when whatever I'm doing will not result in damage that costs much more to fix than had I just hired someone to begin with."

Hear, hear. I still regret an "easy" plumbing fix I attempted on my first house that turned into a sizable repair bill (and an afternoon spent repairing the plaster wall I ruined). "How to Fix Everything for Dummies" might have been a better start.

• Find a contractor to help with your home project

Another factor to consider: Will the job get done? All the good intentions in the world might not matter if the repairs and improvements never happen. In those cases, you might be smart to hand your to-do list over to Mr. Handyman and be done with it.

Personal care

After reading all the grooming tasks Your Money posters perform on themselves, I was waiting for someone to volunteer that he did his own plastic surgery.

Fortunately, I was disappointed. But I did hear from a crop of folks who cut their own hair, or their kids', or color or highlight their own tresses.

Poster "p7eter" shaves his own head -- "I'm going bald anyway" -- and "StillOnTheRoad" buzzes his locks using a $30 set of clippers purchased years ago.

I was more in tune with poster "hateditanyway," who gives herself a manicure and pedicure every Saturday morning.

"Everyone at work thinks I hang out at the salon on weekends, but, nope, it's all my own doing," hateditanyway wrote. "It is VERY easy to cut, file and polish one's nails -- all 20 of 'em."

Yeah, but: Hairdos have to be pretty simple to undergo a do-it-yourself cut without looking, well, do-it-yourself. And salons -- hair or nail -- can be as much a social event and a retreat as a grooming experience. Still, you can save some money learning how to do a simple bang or mustache trim or polishing your own nails every other week.

Remember your iron?

A good tailor can be a godsend, particularly if you aren't a perfect-sized anything. A few alterations can make basic clothes look terrific.

But you don't need a tailor to sew on a button or hem a pair of jeans. And you certainly don't need to drop clothing off at a dry cleaner just to be pressed. Any task that's simple enough to do while you're watching "American Idol" is something you can tackle yourself. If you're not sure how, ask a handy friend.

Poster "GCG1RL" said her husband "was always taking things to the cleaners to have them mended or pressed." Then the couple bought a steamer and GCG1RL took over the mending.

"Really, it takes like 40 minutes to steam shirts for the week and 10 minutes to iron the pants," she wrote. "Sewing on a button takes like five minutes."

Yeah, but: Some people really, truly hate ironing, steaming or anything involving a needle. If you've got that big a phobia, maybe you can swap the task with a spouse or friend for something you're more willing to do, such as scrub the toilets. Speaking of which, you might want to rethink . . .

Lawn and home care

Several posters did the cost-benefit calculation on housecleaners and lawn services and found both came up wanting.

Poster "justeloped" touted the exercise and enjoyment to be had from gardening, mulching and landscaping, while poster "ARCHIEtheDRAGON," who bought a mower for $65, knocks out the task in "30-40 minutes every week or two."

When it comes to housecleaning, others said the effort involved isn't onerous enough for them to hire help.

"I find that the decluttering prior to cleaning is what takes longer. Running the vacuum, swishing the toilet brush around and running the mop over the floor really does not take that long," poster GCG1RL wrote. "You have to declutter for the cleaning lady anyway, so just save the money and finish the task yourself."

Poster agilemom said hired cleaning help "was totally worth the money" when her children were young and she and her husband "were on the run all the time." As the kids have gotten older, they've been more able to pitch in.

"A few months back we looked at each other and said, 'Why are we still paying for this?' Now we do it as a family then spend the money we saved doing fun stuff."

Yeah, but: Consider harmony. If you and your significant other are just going to fight over who doesn't do what, the investment in cleaning or lawn care services may be worthwhile. You have to consider the community as well. Don't make your neighbors seethe as the new crop of dandelions is overrun by the crabgrass.

Liz Pulliam Weston's latest book, "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life," is now available. Columns by Weston, the Web's most-read personal-finance writer and winner of the 2007 Clarion Award for online journalism, appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on the Your Money message board.