I have a joke I bust out when anyone asks me if I’m good at specific manual labour.

“I’m so bad at DIY, that I can’t even spell it.”

My reluctance to learn such skills is one of monetary choice rather than of inadequacy. I’d rather pay someone to do it for me. Why?

If you have a plumbing problem, some may spend 2 hours trying to fix it themselves... Instead of paying the $50 per hour plumber’s rate.

They see it as saving $100 — as if their own time is worthless. However, if their own hourly rate is $60 an hour, they’re losing $20 by not hiring the plumber.

Your time is worth money.

You need to see money in the same way outlined in ‘Thoreau’s new economics’.

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it” — Henry David Thoreau

Before you spend, each purchase can be divided by your hourly rate to see how much ‘life’ it will cost you to buy that thing.

Then ask yourself, is it worth it?

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• Geraint Clarke