http://www.lovemorelivebetter.com/blog/2010/03/diy-we-should-get-back-to-taking-care-of-ourselves/ An educational and motivational guide for exceptional young couples who crave financial independence but need help developing clear goals, eliminating debt, and achieving their dream of self-employment. Sun, 15 Aug 2010 07:00:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.lovemorelivebetter.com/blog/2010/03/diy-we-should-get-back-to-taking-care-of-ourselves/comment-page-1/#comment-59 Emily Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:54:26 +0000 http://www.lovemorelivebetter.com/?p=757#comment-59 We agree with you Elizabeth! Given your situation (no debt except the mortgage and money going into savings, hopefully at least 15%), which is where we hope our readers find themselves sooner rather than later, it is absolutely understandable to have a cleaner come in to help you out. We wish you and yours continued luck and success! We agree with you Elizabeth! Given your situation (no debt except the mortgage and money going into savings, hopefully at least 15%), which is where we hope our readers find themselves sooner rather than later, it is absolutely understandable to have a cleaner come in to help you out. We wish you and yours continued luck and success!

]]> http://www.lovemorelivebetter.com/blog/2010/03/diy-we-should-get-back-to-taking-care-of-ourselves/comment-page-1/#comment-58 Elizabeth Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:22:03 +0000 http://www.lovemorelivebetter.com/?p=757#comment-58 I love the sentiment but also have one observation to make. My husband and I do what we can to take care of ourselves, but at a certain point one also has to weigh the cost of your own time spent doing something (i.e., could your time be better spent doing something else?) vs. the cost of paying someone else to do the something for you. For us, this means having a cleaner come to the house every two weeks -- they do the whole house once a month and the main floor every two weeks. It's not that we can't and aren't willing to do it, but rather that I have a demanding career as a patent attorney, my husband has an exhausting career as a high school teacher, and we have a 22 month old and 2 dogs to distract us in our free time. That's not to say that these costs come at the expense of other savings (our only debt is our mortgage, we have extensive retirement and emergency savings, and we already have extensive savings for our munchkin's education). But if we weren't already financially "sound", I absolutely would agree with your advice that these extra expenses should be cut out in order to increase savings. I love the sentiment but also have one observation to make. My husband and I do what we can to take care of ourselves, but at a certain point one also has to weigh the cost of your own time spent doing something (i.e., could your time be better spent doing something else?) vs. the cost of paying someone else to do the something for you. For us, this means having a cleaner come to the house every two weeks — they do the whole house once a month and the main floor every two weeks. It’s not that we can’t and aren’t willing to do it, but rather that I have a demanding career as a patent attorney, my husband has an exhausting career as a high school teacher, and we have a 22 month old and 2 dogs to distract us in our free time. That’s not to say that these costs come at the expense of other savings (our only debt is our mortgage, we have extensive retirement and emergency savings, and we already have extensive savings for our munchkin’s education). But if we weren’t already financially “sound”, I absolutely would agree with your advice that these extra expenses should be cut out in order to increase savings.

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