Where do you draw the line?

Where's your line in the sand? At what point do you say, "I can't do this myself. I'll have to pay somebody else to do it for me."? I'm finding out more and more that the lines I draw for myself aren't always in the right place. Simply put, sometimes I pay for things that I later realize I could have done more cheaply myself.

Case in point: A while back, I had my car's brakes fixed because they were starting to grind metal-on-metal. Partly because our car is the means by which my wife gets to work, and partly because I'm less than confident about my automotive repair skills, I took the car to the cheapest auto shop to have the job done. They turned the rotors and replaced the brake pads, then bled the brake system to get rid of air bubbles. Total time invested on their part? Probably about 2 hours, tops. Total cost, about $150, which was cheaper than Les Schwab.

Five months down the road, I have to get the brakes done again, because the rotors have warped due to excessive heat. It was another $80 just to get new rotors installed. The next day, I was talking to my dad about my car, and he told me that it was a simple fix that would have taken me a couple hours and a little coaching from him. Parts would have run only about $35 or so. Needless to say, I was kicking myself over the waste of money.

Another example that came out while I was talking to my dad: He has a buddy at work who was lamenting the fact that it had cost him $1,600 to have a new water heater installed in his home. Now, I don't care what kind of residential water heater you're having installed, there's no way it should cost anywhere near $1,600. A good water heater costs about $350. And even with professional installation, the total still should be less than $500. Anyway, my dad's buddy isn't a stupid man, but in this instance at least, he convinced himself that this job was beyond his ability to do. Poor guy, it was only after he talked to my dad that he realized how expensive a lesson he had just learned. His excuse for paying that much was, "I work so that I don't have to do that kind of stuff."

I guess this ties into the oft-repeated question: "How much is your time worth?" Are you willing to spend $230 for a brake job that you could easily do? Are you willing to work for two weeks just so you can pay some guy $1,600 for a job that should only take two hours? Where do you draw your line in the sand? I truly believe that this principle can make a big difference in my personal finances, and probably in yours as well.