Quite some time ago, my house and garage needed new shingles. It's a simple enough job to do, so I priced everything out. I discovered my costs were not a great deal less than hiring a local shingling outfit and they took one day to do the complete job. I would have been days at it and risk the chance of rain and having to fool with plastic sheeting, etc. I decided to hire it out. As it turned out, I got a call-out at work and the money I made from that more than made up the difference between their and my costs, plus I can guarantee, working in my specialty (Lineman) was a lot easier than doing roofing plus I would have had to work many more hours roofing than I worked on that call-out. That was an instance where hiring it out was the better economic choice and I am sure they did every bit as good a job as I could have, quite possible better in fact.
Just over a week ago, I had the intake manifold gaskets changed on my 1994 Chevy 5.7L truck engine. I've no room in my garage to work indoors so I would have had to work outdoors. I've just the single vehicle now, so if I got it apart and needed parts, it would have been a royal PITA with my sole transport immobile. I farmed it out. My mechanic is absolutely top notch and even though I am capable of doing the job, he is too, in spades! Even if it was summer, and I had room in my garage and a second vehicle, I think I would still have decided to farm it all out just because I am 59 and a fat old fart! I looked at my bank account and decided I could easily afford to farm the job out. Could I have saved myself a lot of money doing it myself? Absolutely! But it was worth it to me to have him do it just for the convenience factor which is a very subjective thing and would vary from person to person.
I do a bit of metal working as a hobby and I've made a few one off parts for a friends tractors. One was a battery box for a Cockshutt 30. We were lucky to get an original factory one from a friend and I copied it exactly!
I've also made him a few floor panels for his John Deere D, a couple of tool boxes and battery boxes, again, copied exactly from factory originals. I've made parts for the clutch in his D, and made new parts to eliminate the extreme flop in the hand clutch on my R, plus several other little items. If I tried to cost my labour to make all that stuff, even at minimum wage, it would be more than what you could buy the aftermarket stuff for. Factor in the cost of my tools and equipment that I used while making/fixing the stuff plus material and the total cost would have been ridiculous! I didn't do that work for economic reasons, I did it because it was for my friend, and because I could.
There's three examples where you could put a dollar figure on my labour. There is absolutely no way that dollar figure could be the same in all three instances.
If you do insist on putting a $ figure on your at home labour, I believe it can be only be done when you eliminate hiring someone to do the work, if you can reasonably do the work yourself and you will then be able to say just how much you "paid" yourself doing the job. Sometimes the cost difference might be zilch or even cheaper if you hired it out, but you have the satisfaction of knowing it was done as you wanted it and when you wanted it. Sometimes you might indeed pay yourself very well to do it yourself. Other times you might just plain want to do the job yourself for personal reasons and the costs are not an issue at all. Every job would probably work out to a different rate also...no way could you "flat rate" yourself at a fixed number.
