By Nicholas Hamner
Investment Advisor Representative
[email protected]
If you’re a regular reader, you know I’m a fan of tools. I’ve talked about what tools I own, what I carry, and—most recently—what I keep in the truck. And as I shoveled the 5″ or so of “light dusting” off my driveway this past weekend (with a brand-new shovel!), I started thinking back to all the different snow tools I’ve tried in the 18 winters we’ve had the house.
I’ve tried plain shovels, shovels with intentionally bent handles, shovels with unintentionally bent handles, big shovels that you push like a bulldozer, electric brooms, electric snow throwers, electric shovels(?), and a gas-powered snowblower that cranked once when I bought it and has refused to start again no matter what I do to it.
Some of those tools cost $10. Some of them cost upwards of $400. And I hated using all of them. But the best tool I found for snow removal only cost $20. That tool is called “the-kid-who-knocks-on-your-door-and-will-shovel-your-snow-for-$20”.
Not sold in stores!
Shoveling snow isn’t rocket science. It is basic physical labor. All you need are two hands, energy, and the personal desire for a clean driveway. (In many instances, a wife and child who want to leave the house OR a strongly worded letter from the township can be substituted for personal desire.) And while any of us can do it, a good many of us will outsource it without a second thought. It’s not worth the time. It’s not worth the headache. It’s not worth the back ache! So we happily pay someone else to do it knowing that we’re paying money for something we could do ourselves. And we do this fully aware that we’re paying to relieve a temporary issue that will go away on its own—the sun will eventually come out and none of us will have snow on the sidewalk come, say, May.
Contrast that with more cerebral work. Pen and paper work. Most of us don’t think twice when spending money to avoid physical labor. Shovel the snow? Cut the grass?! The heck with that! Here’s $20, you do it. No sweat, no tears? But when faced with mental labor rather than physical labor, all of a sudden we’re all dirt-poor superheroes—able to do anything we need to do except spend a penny (RIP pennies). My neighbor—who, incidentally, is the one who sold me that gas snowblower—spends $60 a week from spring through fall to get the neighborhood kids to take care of his yard. Over $1,000 a year. For a yard that’s dead by December anyway. When it came time to do his estate plan… y’know, protect his family, ensure they were taken care of if something happened to him, protect his long-term legacy… he did it for free online because, “The lawyer wanted $800… for a computer printout!”
To his credit, he did try to suss out as much legal advice as he could from free sources while doing it himself, and since he did ask the hard questions like, “Will it count if I don’t write my name in cursive?”, I’m sure his will came out just fine…
We’re all OK paying someone to avoid physical pain and discomfort in the short-term. What I think we fail to realize is that work that doesn’t involve physical labor can still hurt, only it’s usually in the long-term. Like gas station sushi, the pain happens later… when you can’t do anything to avoid it.
A lot of folks can only value the physical objects they’re given, which is where dismissive phrases like “$5 words” and “$1,000 pieces of paper” come from. These people think they’re saving money painlessly by doing things themselves… not accounting for the pain that comes a decade later when they have to go back to work because they didn’t create an accurate plan, or the pain that comes from a spouse left homeless because an online form was filled out incorrectly 30 years ago. That pain, just like physical pain, could have been avoided by paying the right person to handle it.
Something to think about this weekend when we’re supposed to get a foot of snow. Snow that I’m not looking forward to shoveling. Hopefully a kid comes knocking, because I know that snowblower won’t crank. Maybe I can find a kid who’s good with snowblower carburetors…