Own effort - What can be sold well at the bank?

PS: Someone somewhere wrote that it would be nonsense to perform personal labor on high-priced houses (because the person has enough money). I cannot share that opinion. I did not exactly choose the budget option, which was only possible through personal labor...

Since I wrote that, I would like to explain again that this only has limited to do with high-priced houses, but rather with the value of one's own hour. If I sell my work performance at my job for €35, then it makes no sense to replace a craftsman’s hour priced at €30 with 2 hours of my personal time, because then the value of the personal labor hour is only €15. In addition, I may have to buy or borrow tools and probably will not get the materials as cheaply as the craftsman. That reduces the value of the hour worked to perhaps €10. Furthermore, I would possibly have to factor in additional work/costs incurred which otherwise would have been covered by the craftsman’s warranty. Therefore, the value of my own working hour is only €8.
There may also be costs and time for travel to and from the construction site, so the effective saving is only €7 per hour invested.

The easiest way to explain this example is with a salesperson. He either has the option to conduct an additional customer visit, close contracts, and earn on average €35 gross per hour or he puts himself on the construction site and saves €7.

Of course, my example has a few drawbacks, e.g. because in the salesperson’s example the €35 is gross income. But even the net income (about €17.50) is higher than the €7 and he possibly pays more into social insurance and might receive somewhat more pension/unemployment benefits etc. in the future.
Also, not everyone receives €35 for additional hours worked, but is a salaried employee (with overtime compensated in the salary). However, my boss pays me my salary for my full work performance. If I now spend every day and weekend on the construction site, no one can tell me that I can still deliver 100% performance at work. That means I am no longer worth the paid €35/hour. I have a good friend who renovated a house with a lot of personal labor. He sometimes fell asleep during his lunch break and jumped up again after 2 hours.

No one would think of hiring an electrician for the sanitary installation just because the electrician’s hourly rate is €25 and the plumber’s rate is €35. Strangely, however, when it comes to personal labor, one replaces a specialist with a non-specialist and still believes one is saving money.

What is completely disregarded in all these number games is the much more important issue: family and health.
Anyone who still says that the golden faucet, which they can suddenly afford through personal labor, is more important to them than family and health, should ask themselves what they live for.

Your calculation has a catch: it practically only applies to self-employed people or those who work on commission basis or similar...

A regular employee always gets their money in the account on the nth day. Therefore, I cannot calculate my hourly wage against the personal contributions.

And of course, you save - maybe not time, but cash. Additionally, you gain experience - in whichever direction.

You often read this calculation, but I could never understand it.

The invoice has many catches... As if I just work an hour longer and therefore have 35 euros more in the account... Such nonsense, and even a self-employed salesperson first has to sell something with the additional customer visits!

Your calculation has a catch: It only applies to self-employed people... 0

Usually, employed salespeople also receive a low base salary and the rest through commissions.

A regular employee always gets their money in the account on the nth day. Therefore, I can't calculate my hourly wage based on my own contributions...

Why don't you ask your boss if you can get a 45-hour contract instead of the 37/40-hour week if you have "free peaks"? I can well imagine that this even works in many medium-sized companies. Doing this over 10 years is certainly financially more attractive and also better for your health than spending every free minute on the construction site for a year.

No, something like that is not possible here and in many other companies. But you also have a very limited view of the area of in-house services...

Very few employees are salespeople on a commission basis...

There are cases where people really burn themselves out and need to be protected from themselves. But you can't generalize that immediately – of course it is a tough time, but you do it for yourself, you realize yourself, it is finite, and it saves a lot of money.

Your perspective is really extremely limited, Musketeer. My husband definitely did not fall asleep at the desk and he also simply didn't work overtime for a change, but otherwise he did his job reliably as always. Since we have been in the house, everything has been fine and as a thank you, he is now getting a substantial raise as of 1.1.16. And he enjoyed doing it. He sits in the office all day and that was something different. It challenged him and I think that's the only reason we even built.