Living The Lifestyle - Monday 9/9/24

crewahl

This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion.

Monday - crewahl (Charlie)
Tuesday – Wildcard
Wednesday-misterhub (Greg)
Thursday -imastar2 (Derrick)
Friday - Wildcard

Today's Topic: Division of Labor

Nope, not you and your significant other. Rather, are the things you choose to do around your home for the sake of activity that you might otherwise pay someone to do?

crewahl

Our driveway gets cleared and our lawn gets mowed courtesy of our HOA (and the monthly check we send them), so that’s not an issue. I generally trim the shrubs on the property, which they would do - but wouldn’t do well. I’ve started trying to find a handyman for things involving heights, because the activity isn’t worth the risk of falling.

Flintwinch

Ditto on the heights. Too risky. We hire out yard maintenance, but I do the in-between-visits stuff. We live in the Pacific NW and have a natural yard with various native plants, but no grass. The backyard is a deck next to house and five large cedars in the back part of the yard. Cleaning needles and other tree debris is an ongoing task. Our deck is composite and we have our yard man to wash it annually. Little tasks around the house account for a lot of activity. I can easily get in 6,000 steps without a dedicated dog walk or a hike.

imastar2

I also hire out the grass cutting and also the shrubbery trimming although I'd rather do it myself.
The rest of our home DW and I do our best to do most everything else with the exception of anything that requires getting higher than the fast step of a ladder.
It's a division of doing it myself mainly to get up and get moving.

Al_Howard

I'm at the point of 'Let Joe do it".
Lawn is really the only thing like that that I farm out. TOL and my tenant's take care of the flowers and bushes.
Indoors, if I or TOL can't do it, our youngest son (55yrs) can, and wants to help outdoors to for bigger jobs we can't do
NOTHING to do with activity. Just maintenance.

misterhub

Because I work in a different town than where my house is, and my wife takes care of the place, we have a guy who does stuff. But, she's stubborn enough that she still does a lot of stuff on her own. Once in a while, she'll go, "Yeah, I'm going to let Sam do that from now on." lol

cakeman21k

So we live in a gated HOA'd community, and need to abide by their sometimes dumb rules. When we bought our RV and took our first long summer trip I had to hire a lawn service to take care of the grass while we were away, I discovered how much I really likes NOT having to cut the grass! So we still have the grass cut although I still take care of the bushes, mulching etc. with varying degrees of success. I find as the years go by that I am doing less of the maintenance items by myself either because I am not capable (getting the ladder out is a definite no no!) Or just because I do not have the energy / motivation. My biggest challenge these days seems to be getting a contractor of any kind to return my call when I am trying to have something done around the house. My DW and I are planning on moving into a retirement community in the next 2 - 4 years, and we are both looking for a place that will work for us, and doing larger maintenance items to our house (things like having the interior / exterior painted, window replacement etc. So finding contractors is a big deal for us right now. ( I have 1 coming for an estimate this afternoon) I addition there are any number of things that we have one without the HOA's express approval that we will have to deal with so its an ongoing challenge.