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Do the right thing, dammit (even if it’s not the easy thing)

WHY IT PAYS TO DO THE RIGHT THING

The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.

Ain’t that the truth?

 

Thing is, taking the easy way out will often backfire. Laziness, procrastination, whatever you want to call it … sometimes it comes back to bite you square on the butt.

And I don’t know about you, but very few things annoy me quite as much as putting things off for later only for it to come back and cost me later.

How laziness can be expensive, in two case studies:

Example A: The oil leak

Our car boot has been home to a spear (as in spearfishing) for awhile – it’s just been kicking around in there since a mate left it there.

Then we bought some oil for the car, since it’s about due for a service. Left that in the boot too, until a few days later when T went to retrieve it …

Cue oil leak. The dang spear pierced the bottom of the oil bottle and about 80% of the contents leaked, seeping into the boot carpeting and down into the spare tyre alcove (at least the cap didn’t come off, a gushing flood would have been SO much worse).

To add insult to injury, we have a protective rubber liner that usually lives on the boot floor but had been putting off putting it back in after taking it out for a cleaning ages ago. If that had been in place, it would have been much tidier and made cleaning up a cinch.

The damage: about $50 in oil and the subsequent cleanup.

Example B: The water leak

We took out part of a wall over the holidays, as part of the kitchen project. We did get an absolute steal on the labour because we know the guys, but they are legit building professionals.

Afterward, they apparently swept a bunch of the detritus straight through the hole in the floor, under the house. I learned this too late, and was wringing my hands about it (“what about the dogs?! You KNOW they like to wander underneath the house sometimes, and they could get hurt!”)

Alas, what was done was done.

And then a few days later I suspected a leak. Sure enough, we have a tiny little rubber water hose running below the house – it connects the main tap to our fridge (our new fridge has a cold water dispenser built in) and in their willy nilly dumping of crap through the floor instead of disposing of it properly, must have punctured the hose.

The damage: TBC. I’m hoping it won’t have majorly impacted our water bill, given how small the hose is and the size of the hole/leak. And I doubt that amount of water will have done much damage to the house itself. But I’m still majorly annoyed about it .

(The fix: I faced my claustrophobia and crawled under the house to snip the hose off before the leak and cap it there to stop the flow. It SUCKED but at least now I know I can handle it, dirt and all. I still, however, refuse to try to get up into the roof … that involves putting a chair in our tiny hall closet and then squeezing through an even smaller hole to reach the roof space.)

Laziness costs money, guys.

Ever taken the easy route and wound up regretting it?

7 thoughts on “Do the right thing, dammit (even if it’s not the easy thing)

  • Reply Yet Another PF Blog January 11, 2018 at 11:36

    I worry about this all the time with home repair stuff. We’re finally at the point where I feel like we have an electrician and HVAC company we can trust (still looking for a plumber though). Their prices are premium, but I feel a lot more confident they’ll do the right thing the first time without breaking my house.

  • Reply Sarah | Smile & Conquer January 11, 2018 at 16:28

    Ugh, good luck with the water leak, hopefully it’s not too costly!

    I’ve definitely taken the easy (lazy) way out of things and regretted them later. It hasn’t always cost me money but it does always cost time. I’m terrible for putting things off and then having to deal with a super-sized project a few weeks later. Why do we do this to ourselves?!

  • Reply Amanda January 12, 2018 at 06:57

    Ha – yes! This just happened to me, actually. We were in the middle of a cold spell, with temperatures as low as -40 C. And instead of parking my car somewhere where I could plug it in to keep the battery going, I parked on the street in front of my house. And then, of course, the car wouldn’t start… Thankfully we have a roadside service membership, but I regretting my decision. Instead of getting my errands done right away, I had to wait around for over an hour just to get my car working again.

  • Reply Mrs. ETT January 13, 2018 at 14:43

    Oh my goodness, this describes us to a T! We are master procrastinators, and will put up with vague inconveniences for YEARS because we are too lazy to take 10 minutes and do something. I’m trying to improve, but even the trying is half-hearted!

  • Reply Funny about Money January 14, 2018 at 06:04

    Waitaminit. If the workmen caused the leak by dumping trash under the house (which you would not have let them do had you known what they were up to), why not call them and ask them to come fix the damage they caused? And while they were at it, they could clean up the mess the left.

    • Reply eemusings January 14, 2018 at 10:49

      T was with them – hell maybe he suggested it – so it’s on him (the car is also his domain so really both examples are him taking the lazy way out) which is why I was all WTF, you KNOW the dogs like to go under there. Who knows when they would have been able to get back over. Was way quicker for me to get under there and sort it out ASAP (T would have done it but he’s too big for that small space)

      And they’d already been carrying all the big stuff outside, so to just cut corners right at the end with the small stuff (basically just stuff that needed sweeping up) annoyed me. Not much harder to sweep it up and put in the rubbish than to sweep it through the gap in the floor…

  • Reply the Budget Epicurean February 16, 2018 at 10:22

    Whoa, crazy timing! Procrastination must be in the air lately 😉 ( http://www.budgetepicurean.com/finances/my-most-expensive-vice/) Sorry about the oil spill, that must have been annoying to clean, and wow your oil is expensive. And how rude of those guys to just literally sweep debris under the rug… you should call them out on that for any costs associated with the fix. Bless you for crawling into a crawl space! Ours is dirty and dark and terrifyingly full of bugs… that’s hubs’ defacto job if ever it becomes necessary!

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