

Outsourcing Cooking with Craigslist for $60/week - colinplamondon
http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/the-price-of-my-dreams-60-a-week

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menloparkbum
About half the time I wish I could outsource my job to someone on Craig's list
for $15/hr so that I could spend more time cooking.

~~~
mynameishere
There was an hilarious dilbert strip which I _can not find_ which had Dilbert
washing his cubicle with a spray bottle and rag, dancing about having a great
time, and then Alice shows up and says, "Okay, you've had the bottle long
enough. It's my turn to pretend to be a janitor."

It's not funny till you've been there: Mundane labor in the office [1] is
strangely delightful compared to typing.

[1] Not just janitorial work, but office moves, decorating, carrying stuff,
etc.

~~~
delano
I hear that. I spent two weekends back in the day helping another department
get through a backlog of envelope stuffing. That and the phone book ripping
competition were two of the highlights in that office.

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staunch
> _1\. Cooking_

Cooking dinner takes me about 20 minutes every day and I eat pretty healthy.

> _2\. Washing dishes - especially pots, pans and knives that can’t go in the
> dishwasher_

I must be doing it wrong because I put absolutely everything in the
dishwasher. Seems to work well enough for me.

> _3\. Shopping - especially for food!_

I go shopping about every 5 days and that's about 1 hour round trip.

> _4\. Driving out to get take out (just DRIVING!)_

I almost never pick up take out. If I do it's to somewhere close and 20 minute
round trip.

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PStamatiou
I live in a big building so by the time I go down the main elevator, walk
through the lobby, take the parking elevator to my car, drive around 3 levels
to find the exit since i park on the lowest floor and make it to the street,
that's 15 minutes gone already. Therefore I really appreciate not having to
leave unless I have to, or having a friend pick me up. I think I may try
something like this..

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Xichekolas
Sounds like a brilliant idea to me, but I was confused by one point. He says
she drops the food off twice a week. Is it only two days worth of food or is
she batching up 3-4 days of food and delivering it all at once?

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sidsavara
The latter - I have enough food for all my meals (lunches and dinners) each
week. I often have more than enough, and share with my roommates and friends.

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david927
You're brilliant! I would have never thought of that, and yet I think that
this is absolutely a trend we'll start seeing. Outsourcing is going to go to
the neighborhood.

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corentin
For example, you could hire your neighbor's kid to maw your lawn and stuff
like that.

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orib
For some reason that typo gave me a rather amusing mental image of the
neighbor's kid trying to eat your lawn ("shove it in his maw"). Yeah. Stupid
brain making connections where they don't exist.

~~~
delackner
Isn't one of the main definitions of creativity the making of connections
between hitherto unconnected things?

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sidsavara
colinplamondon, thank you for submitting my site to HN. I was debating it but
didn't want my first submission to be mistaken as self promotional blog spam.
I'm glad you and others have enjoyed it =)

~~~
colinplamondon
You bet :)

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nazgulnarsil
I've always wondered why laundry/maid service isn't more popular too. if your
time is worth $30 an hour+ you lose money by doing menial chores such as
laundry and cleaning.

~~~
litewulf
I would like to point out that not all hours of the day are spent "generating
value".

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byrneseyeview
If your time is worth $30 per hour, but you enjoy cleaning enough that you
aren't willing to pay $10 per hour for it, you're implying that you would
sacrifice $20 per hour to clean. So when you retire, will you pay people that
much for the chance to clean their house?

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litewulf
I think you are misunderstanding me. Not every hour in the day is worth
$30/hr. In fact, I am paid a salary and thus the more I work the less my
hourly wage!

What I'm saying is that on the weekends for example, it is unlikely I would be
able to make $30/hour. I might be able to do contract work... but then I'd
have to hunt for work, so its difficult to really assign a dollar value to
that.

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modoc
Cooking a nice meal with my wife is one of the few sacred couples-time block
we have every day.

~~~
eru
And now you can do it for other people, too. ;)

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biohacker42
What's so interesting about this is that for $60 a week you can get a LOT of
calories from fast food. But then you could be dead soon.

In Europe you could east pretty healthy delicious food for about $60 a week
easily.

But America seems to lack a cheap + good + won't kill you food option. Like a
whole market segment is not served.

And Americans in general don't go out to eat like Europeans do. Either it's
(to go) fast food, or an expensive sit down meal.

~~~
khafra
I didn't know it was different in Europe. Here in America, you can have tasty
food, cheap food, or healthy food--pick up to two options. There's a few hole-
in-the-wall places with good food and single-digit entrees, but the 2/3 rule
works in general.

~~~
menloparkbum
I've only spent about 3 months total in Europe, but I thought food was much
more expensive. Also, the less-expensive prepared food didn't seem very
healthy - kebabs, frites, crepes, etc. If I wanted to save money I'd just get
some bread and cheese from a market. Good fruits and vegetables seemed to be
conspicuously absent, at least when compared to California.

The conclusion I came to was that people in Europe tend to be thinner than
Americans because they can't afford to eat very often...

~~~
biohacker42
I have to admit there's healthy and European healthy. Fruits and veggies are
healthy, crepes are European healthy, fast food is not anyone's healthy.

Good fruits and vegetables are only seasonally present in the central and
norther European countries, where the local climate is too cold to grow a
decent tomato.

Southern Europe on the other hand has you covered, the climate is a lot like
California.

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khangtoh
I think the best part of the this experiment is you get to be surprised every
week. Being someone who cooks and prepares meals for myself, I constantly
struggle with coming up with something new. I find myself repeating the menu
over and over again. So having the joy of sitting back and not knowing what's
next is absolutely wonderful.

~~~
sidsavara
Yes, that's one of the unintended consequences of this experiment =).
Originally, my plan was to tell them what to make - but she took the
initiative in suggesting meal plans to lay out her skillset, and wanted to
save time by cooking the same food for her family. I definitely look forward
to my drop off days for just that reason!

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timcederman
If I was less of a germo, I'd be totally down for this. :)

~~~
sidsavara
I have had friends tell me what I should watch out or I'm going to get
poisoned =P

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acgourley
Sounds pretty cool. After ingredients he is probably paying 100 dollars.
That's between 2 and 3 dollars a meal, which is about right for something made
from farmers market grade ingredients.

However, for 100 dollars I could probably order out to a set of restaurants to
eat for a week. (5 orders of 2 dishes each, should be 20 per an order. That
leaves me with 10 restaurant meals which would be about as much food as 12-15
meals from his cook, I suspect). Still, deciding what I want each time,
calling, paying the delivery guy... that takes more time.

~~~
sobriquet
>>After ingredients he is probably paying 100 dollars. That's between 2 and 3
dollars a meal,

Uh, fuzzy math? He's paying $60/week + food, so $100/week would be more like
$7/meal (assuming breakfast isn't a fully cooked meal since eggs/pancakes
don't cook so well). Would be $15/meal if he's only talking dinners.

Still seems like a good deal considering the time he saves, and I'd like to
have a mother's cooking rather than my own feeble attempts :)

~~~
sidsavara
I think you are both right - it is a few bucks a meal for food, but when you
factor in the labor costs into the total of what I actually end up paying, it
is in the range of 5-10 a meal based on the week - some weeks I get shrimp,
some weeks it's turkey!

This week (first batch), it's Greek food! Kabobs and some salad. No idea
what's coming Friday =)

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Psyonic
Does anyone else find this whole "outsource your life" movement a little
disturbing?

~~~
Timothee
In a way, I think I would feel uncomfortable because having people doing your
menial tasks sounds a little like having servants.

However, I think it can make sense. If it makes you happier, more relaxed, or
gives you more time to work on something you enjoy... the money spent can be
worth it (or even more).

As far as I'm concerned, I know that I'm wasting too much time in general to
be able to say that I need to outsource parts of my life because I don't have
enough time for myself.

~~~
colinplamondon
What's wrong with having servants as long as you can afford it and are paying
a living wage?

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racecar789
I buy TV dinners for every day of the week (single guy). It saves a lot of
time and prep only takes 5:28 minutes. Cost is $3.33 per dinner ($23.31wk).

To drive costs down further I am saving the plastic trays from the packages
and plan on making my own TV dinners in batches (30 at a time).

I used to eat them with disposable silverware, plates and cups to save time
dish washing but found this to be a little too costly (compared to washing for
free).

There are healthy packages out there to choose from.

~~~
jonknee
I chuckle at guys like you at the grocery checkout. Eat fresh food, it beats
any "healthy packages" you can find.

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cperciva
I find it odd that the options he considered were restaurants, take out, and
hiring a personal chef. Don't the pizza shops in his area deliver?

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tesseract
It sounds like he values variety and healthfulness in his food.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
He never says what he's getting. I would lay money Casey is a fat, typical,
American mother and he's getting loads of starch, cheap meat, and a low
variety of vegetables.

~~~
natrius
_"She asks for my input, but I for the most part ask her to make any healthy
food she wants (high in fiber and protein, lots of fresh vegetables/fruits,
lean meats etc etc)."_

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revorad
the funniest thing is that someone in the comments says, "this is web 2.0".

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sfk
Guys, don't mod this down. It _is_ funny, considering that the transaction
took place on craigslist.org (© 1995-2007).

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Tichy
I admit that cooking sometimes takes too much time, but on the other hand, one
is also supposed to take breaks now and then. For example going shopping is
really just gong for a walk, which is healthy. Frozen food all the time also
does not sound very pleasant.

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thomasmallen
Having servants must be neat for those who can afford it. Every night I cook
dinner with about $3 of ingredients, so I doubt paying almost $9/day on top of
that would be a good investment. And I love to cook...

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jackzombie
Find yourself a spouse who is not only a good cook, but enjoys it too.

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eru
I could turn this into a company.

~~~
delano
Food is not as simple as it seems.

~~~
eru
Sure. My company would reduce the transaction costs and help find people who
prepare food for you.

~~~
sidsavara
I was thinking about making a business out of it, but then I was worried about
potentials for freaks and lawsuits. It's ok if it's just me vetting people for
me personally (and I know _I'M_ not a freak as a customer, so that's half the
battle =P)

~~~
delano
Liability is one problem. Another is that labor costs will go up as the
business develops.

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revorad
the funniest thing is that someone in the comments says, "this is web 2.0".

