Supply & Demand

How many of you have looked at a charge for a service and thought, "That's stupid to pay someone to do that; I can do it myself for less (or free)!" On the flip side, how many of you have ever had a task that we just dreaded doing, and procrastinated, put off, rationalized against, and otherwise avoided it? Nathan often reminds me that the Laws of Supply and Demand dictate that at some point, a consumer will be willing to pay for services. Maybe those of us who have procrastinated and avoided our tasks finally decide to just pay someone else with more time or better skills to do them for us.

I am ashamed. I've been staring at my ironing for a month--one dress in particular--and creatively avoiding it, feeling blessed that we have enough clothes to go without a few particularly wrinkly pieces for weeks on end. In my defense, the dress was fully lined and had boning, and it was tricky fabric. I could have done it myself, but really didn't have the time or energy to focus on such a meticulous piece of work. I finally took it to the dry cleaners and had them do it for me. One hour and $3.78 later, my dress was freshly pressed and hanging in my closet. Much better than stressing over it for a month.