Money has never flowed freely for us, so I am always looking for ways to cut back on costs. With my DIY projects, DH often tells me “your time is worth more than that”, but my thought is that if what you are doing is not keeping you from making money, then your time is NOT worth “more than that”. My theory is that if you have to have something done…AND…you don’t have the $$ to pay for it, then DIY is your only choice.
If you are making something yourself (that has to be purchased)…say…like…ummmm….graduation announcements? If the end result is half the cost of the Josten’s school announcements….that is a good thing right? (disclaimer: don’t tell anyone…but…. sometimes my ideas end up costing more money than what would have originally been spent. Shhhhh! ) For instance... those aforementioned Josten’s announcements run approximately $1.50 each. I think having the “official” announcement chosen by certain members of the senior class is important, but not necessarily important enough to send to everyone on our grad list. Last year, some family members had photo memory announcements designed that ended up costing about $1 each.
After looking at a few of those announcements, I thought…goodness! I can design these…AND I have a reasonably priced printing source that could make my announcements half of even that cost. Well Prom was the past weekend, which means it is time to begin working on those announcements. So far, I have spent four solid days of designing and I STILL don’t have an end product with which I am satisfied. After looking at several designs online, my designs are not quite up to par. My ideas are good I think, but my software is failing me.
So this is where I whisper to you, again, that my ideas sometimes cost me more than if I had just gone ahead and purchased someone else’s work. I have been looking at an upgrade to my software for quite some time now, but just could not rationalize spending the money. In this lifetime, I will never be able to afford Adobe, Dreamweaver, Expressions II, etc. Print Shop is more inline with my budget. I wanted to upgrade to the Print Shop Pro Publisher 23, which would be the third version I have purchased over the years, but I still was having a bit of a time letting go of the cash. Yesterday, after 5 hours of non-stop mistakes and redoes of one announcment, what did I find in my email inbox but a nice 33% discount on thePSPP! In my exhaustion, my willpower was weak and out came the plastic and just like that my new version is on its way.
The way I calculate it, that makes those announcements closer to that $1 each mark now… depending on how many we actually purchase. So there you go….save pennies…spend dollars.
