I usually try to avoid spending money on things that I can do myself. I never really understood why people paid for services like Uber Eats – you’re already not cooking. You’re telling me you’re too lazy to drive to go get your takeout?

But as my life has gotten increasingly full and, consequently, tiring, I’d find myself at the end of every day completely disinterested in doing things like cleaning my own apartment – or leaving it at all.

So I enacted a small experiment this weekend: Spending guiltlessly on convenience instead of muscling my way through it, purely as a personal finance exercise. All in the name of science!

Housekeeping

I’ve never hired a housekeeping service before, but considering there’s a 100-lb. fur ball constantly torpedoing around my apartment, if I miss even a few days of vacuuming, there are fluffy brown tumbleweeds tucked in every corner.

So I bit the bullet and I paid $185 for a “two-hour deep clean service” on a Friday afternoon – and I have to admit, it felt pretty good to park it at my desk, crank through a project, and have two other people vacuuming, scrubbing, and tidying my home behind me.

The value I’d assign to this service

Two people cleaned both bathrooms, the kitchen, both bedrooms, and the main room for two hours. I’d value this service at four hours of my time, or buying back my time for $46 per hour. Of course, I can’t exactly quantify the energy it would’ve sucked out of me, but I recognize that’s a piece of it.

It helped me unwind to pack up the laptop on a Friday night and spin around in my chair to find a sparkling place, which made me feel calm and refreshed (I actually ended up getting a few more hours of work done because I didn’t have to transition into cleaning mode like I normally would after work on a Friday).

The down side

When judging whether something is worth paying a premium, I always try to objectively assess it. There were a few things I noticed after the cleaners left that made me feel like maybe paying extra for a “deep clean” wasn’t worth it – stuff still hadn’t been dusted, parts of the apartment hadn’t really been touched, and I still found myself cleaning a little bit. But for the most part, the stuff I dread cleaning the most (the bathrooms and kitchen) were spotless.

While I probably wouldn’t spend $200 on another “deep clean,” I might consider semi-regularly paying housekeepers for a less expensive service. “Deep clean” made me think this place would shine like the top of the Chrysler building, so I was probably bound to be a little disappointed.

Justified?

It begs the question: How much money do you need to make (and how much do you need to be working) in order to outsource something as basic as cleaning your own house?

I’m fairly certain I don’t make the type of money that justifies housekeepers, and I truly didn’t think I’d ever be the type of person who would want to pay someone else to do it because I normally enjoy cleaning (to some extent). But hey – it’s pretty nice.

Technically, at $46/hour, this isn’t defensible until your salary is $92,000/year (the point at which your time has been deemed worth $46/hour).

Washing the dog

Washing the aforementioned 100-lb. fluffy torpedo is an exercise in both patience and towel-handiwork. Georgia is massive by any stretch, but especially within the confines of a 1,000 sf. apartment.

She also doesn’t love getting baths, so wrangling her into the tub means you, too, are going to get “washed” – and you better be ready to keep a tight grip on a massive, slippery bear – because every chance she gets, she’ll try to leap out of the tub and leave a trail of soapy slime behind her, which creates a mess that might even rival the muddy paws that necessitated the bath in the first place.

Am I painting an enjoyable enough picture here? In short, we avoid this practice until it’s absolutely necessary.

There are no outdoor hoses available to us at the apartment, so this is really the only option we have.

During the expensive 2-hour cleaning spree, I took Georgia to get a $50 bath at the daycare facility she goes to.

A few hours later, I picked up my fluffy, scented creature and drove her home to wreak fresh havoc on our clean apartment. I have to admit, I was feeling pretty good Friday night – sitting on the couch next to a dog who smelled like shampoo in an apartment that was clean? That’s truly a mid-twenties dream evening.

The downside

When Georgia gets stressed, she gets sick (I won't go into detail, but… she has a nervous stomach). She’s not a fan of baths or daycare, so her Friday afternoon activity didn’t sit well.

I woke up Saturday morning to find she had an accident in her kennel. So while I thought I was paying my way to a seamless, convenience-filled weekend, Georgia promptly put my ass right back in its place.

The value I’d assign to this service

If we could’ve avoided Diarrheageddon afterward, I’d say this was a pretty damn good value: $50 to save me about an hour of time washing the dog (and don’t even get me started on drying) and the aftermath of following her around with towels. I think I could reasonably budget in a professional bath every two months ($25/month allotted).

If you consider $25/month the “price” of saving an hour of time every two months, I’m going to be generous with this one and say it’s more like $25/hour – therefore, a $50,000 salary justifies it ($50,000 is the equivalent of $25/hour).

Food delivery services

For all my shit-talking about Uber Eats, it does come in handy – we ordered takeout from a Korean restaurant down the block that’s literally walking distance.

But in true “convenience experiment” fashion, we went the Uber Eats route.

The food itself totaled $31; when you switched the toggle to “delivery,” the total changed to $41. “Service fees,” tip, and taxes stack up quickly.

The value I’d assign to this service

In short, not $10.

It would’ve taken me all of 10 minutes to go pick up the food myself. And unless someone’s going to physically feed me the food, I don’t think $10 is worth delivery.

$10 may have been worth delivery if the restaurant was on the other side of town and I didn’t feel well, but this certainly didn’t meet my criteria for “value added.”

Final thoughts

I think the biggest lesson I learned from my experiment was that you don’t always get what you pay for, but outsourcing stuff you hate doing can be a huge mental boost.

My original perception of “paying someone else to do stuff for you” was that the outcome would be perfect.

While I normally wouldn’t be irritated that the dresser was dusty or the cat boxes were dirty, I was this time because I had just paid $200 expecting a spotless place.

While I normally wouldn’t be annoyed about Georgia having an accident, I was this time because I had just paid to have her cleaned. It felt like a waste – and worse than a waste, since I’m pretty sure the bath was what stressed her out in the first place.

If you’re going to spend money on convenience, the expectation has to be that you’ll get mostly what you pay for – but in a way, you’re setting yourself up to get a little price-gouged because convenience is, in itself, a premium. If it made perfect economic sense to do so, everyone would do it.

My final takeaway is this: If there’s something you really don’t like doing (cleaning, cooking, etc.) and you can afford to outsource it, it’s worth the psychological relief and time – but paying for convenience isn’t always created equal. I maintain the stance, even on the other side of this, that Uber Eats is a rip-off.

Happy medium solutions

There are certain purchases I’ve made that were expensive (a robot vacuum, a Nespresso machine, etc.), but expensive only once. Now, the value and efficiency I get from these appliances (read: convenience) far surpasses what I initially paid.

The Nespresso prevents me from driving out to Starbucks or a more expensive boutique coffee shop every morning, and the robot vacuum saves me a lot of time –and while it’s not as efficient as a full-fledged cleaning crew, it sure beats taking 15 minutes to work up a sweat pushing a real vacuum around the apartment.