SidSavara.com - Latest Comments in The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Dean — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:54:59 -0000

Hi Sid, just stumbled on your awesome blog. I live in Honolulu, HI am a big Tim Ferris follower. I actually tried this but didn't get the results I wanted. I'm curious if you are still using this service. Also if your cook is available I would be interested. Thanks, keep up the awesome content. I'm a RSS subscriber now.

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Will_L — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:26:12 -0000

Sid, this is awesome! I read 4HWW for the second time around to get an idea to automate my business, soak up the psychology of a person who lives the 4HWW.

I found your site through Hugo @ streamlinedmind.

Awesome post! I def gotta track how I spend my time.. it'll yield some crazy insights!

Thanks for writing this!

- Will

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Nomi — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:41:05 -0000

Just found this, linked from one of your other posts. I am going to do this immediately. I am a wage-slave working mother who makes an excellent salary but hates to cook and loathes grocery stores. I have two overscheduled teenagers. When I get home from work I am exhausted. We eat supper at restaurants 3 or 4 days a week, for an average of $60 each time! Thank you for changing my life (I hope).

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Carrie Tucker — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:44:14 -0000

You are a genius! Bless you, and thanks for the idea!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:31:20 -0000

Thanks! I am a decent cook, but I definitely don't like cooking after a day
of work either ;)

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Happiness Is Better — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:02:15 -0000

Hmmmm. This looks very tempting to do. I'm not a great cook, but my wife is a good cook. The problem is that after working all day, neither of us feel like preparing a meal.
Great post!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:54:20 -0000

Thanks for your comment Amit! I am glad you enjoyed my article, and I
hope you continue to come back as I post new articles often. I'll be
posting a followup to this article shortly, probably in the next few
weeks, so keep an eye out for that =)

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Amit Hirani — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:47:21 -0000

Sid,

I wish I had read this blog during my single days. This would have really saved me time to do other stuff that I wanted. You have mastered the art of outsourcing and proved this can even be applied in day to day life.

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:35:13 -0000

Hey Random Walker,

Nice work. If you've got it down to 3-5 minutes, that's very efficient and
fast - I'm not sure that mine is much faster since I have to take food out
of the fridge, heat it up, etc.

I also like how you've batched your shopping - I think that's one of the
hidden time sinks, I had no idea I was spending so much time shopping.
People say it doesn't take a long time to cook, but you've got to look at
the whole picture: ingredients don't just magically appear in the kitchen =)

Finally - eat your vegetables!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

randomwalker — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:24:49 -0000

This is brilliant. My time is very valuable to me, and this is something I'm going to look into. For now, I've figured out how to make healthy food in just 3-5 minutes. And I save on grocery shopping time by stocking my fridge once in two weeks. And I make a trip to the sandwich shop down the street once a day. The down side is that it doesn't taste that great and I don't get as much vegetables as I should.

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:33:12 -0000

Thanks for your feedback! I think there's definitely a place for hobbies
and the like, but I agree - let's try and focus on what we're best at. Few
of us build our own houses or design our own cars, but we do other things
ourselves, just because we always have. Of course, if you spend money
freeing up some time - make sure you do something valuable with it, that
extra time isn't free - it's been paid for by other time you've spent
working =)

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:13:09 -0000

Hi Mary Ann,

Thanks for your feedback and stopping by! I took a quick look at Cooking
Capsules, and then remembered I had seen it in Wired before as well. Very
cool! Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it =)

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

gentleJuggernaut — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:31:42 -0000

Brilliant idea, if we all sat back and focused on areas we excel, what a different place this would be.

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

asoom — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:29:44 -0000

One more thought. If you make more money per hour than it would cost you to hire someone to cook and do some household chores for you than it just makes more sense to do so!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

asoom — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:21:55 -0000

Genious idea!!!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:48:13 -0000

Thanks very much for your comment, I appreciate it a lot =)

You are right - I spend less on food than if I was buying it myself, because she is awesome. She goes to the farmer's market and finds good deals for her family as well as for me, and likely is also buying in bulk from Costco.

This is a long reply, partly because it is something I wished I had addressed in the article, but I cut it because my article was so long.

I thought a lot about how to figure out what to pay her for food. Should I give her a weekly budget? Should I require receipts?

In the end, I decided I would just trust her. I believe people are about as trustworthy as you give them credit for. I told her, I expect it to be 20-60 a week, about 40 a week on average, and if it's not then we can talk about it. Food prices have shot up in Hawaii as well due to increases in fuel costs.

She has offered to show me receipts a few times, but I just told her I trust her. I believe that if I made her show me receipts, it would add unecessary friction to the smooth process we have. Especially since she is buying food for me and her family at the same time - I don't want her to have to separate out like, half the spinach was for you, half for me, etc.

Also, I think when she has offered to show me receipts, it has made her uncomfortable as well - after all, she wouldn't know how I would react. Suppose I questioned it, or grilled her, or told her why didn't you go to Safeway, they have a sale this week, etc?

So far, it has never been more than 50 a week, and has been as low as 25 some weeks: right in the 30-40 a week range on average. I am only one person though, and I realize I have been extremely fortunate with the person I picked. She is smart, a great cook, responsible and honest.

I am glad you enjoyed the article, and please, come back and tell me if you do try something similar. I love hearing other people's stories, and would love to write a followup if you do try something similar (in cooking or otherwise)

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Covert Hypnosis — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:31:26 -0000

Sid - this is bloody genius. I love the idea and will be considering something similar to allow my wife and I to free up more time with our kids. We figure that we spend $900/month at Costco and the grocery store right now. Your price is about $250 per month and you may even spend LESS on food because she buys it and probably pays bulk.

How do you figure out what to pay her for her cost of food?

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

jokeyxero — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:36:39 -0000

Quiet elegant. I love it.

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Mary Ann — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:58:18 -0000

Hi SId,
Great article! I too have considered the time that cooking and shopping take as well and came up with a mobile app that helps you save some of this time and infuse a little fun into cooking as well. I thought you might be interested: http://www.cookingcapsules.com
Unfortunately, I haven't come up with a way for the phone to help you with your dishes yet.. ;-)
Mary Ann

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

gav — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:00:20 -0000

sensational. great idea dude.

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

rjleaman — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:14:06 -0000

That's a helpful analogy - thank you!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:28:46 -0000

Excellent point Char! =)

My father had the same discussion with me - my parents own The Maids franchise in Honolulu, and he says they emphasize to new clients not just that the level of cleaning is better than if they did it themselves (which it most likely is, as The Maids have stronger vacuums, etc), but that it frees up time in your life to spend with family.

I think he said many people put off cleaning to the weekend, when you can allocate large blocks of time to it - so by having someone come clean for you, you're paying not for them to clean: you're paying so you can have your weekend back!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:26:30 -0000

Interesting idea Steve. You're right - she's not a professional chef, but she IS a very nice person, and cooks very well. She also is willing to try out new dishes now both for me and her family, so I have had some Thai food, some Indian food, Greek food this week, etc - but of course you can't compare that to professional chefs who specialize in their cuisine. It definitely tastes better than my cooking though!

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

sidsavara — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:24:38 -0000

I absolutely agree with that sentiment. I am working on blog post about that right now. In software development, we have a term for it - "premature optimization." It's basically when you optimize some part of a software program to be really efficient or very fast, but you have no idea how it is going to be used. As a result, many developer recommend getting the bugs out and getting everything working, and then "profiling" your software. This profiling finds where the bottle necks are, and you can then go optimize those areas of your software.

I guess I would call this "life profiling" and once I learned that food preparation was a bottle neck, I optimized it - by outsourcing it =)

Re: The Price of my Dreams - $60 a Week

Michael Martine — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:29:38 -0000

Makes a lot of sense the way you break it down. Very smart! Now you got me thinking... :)