Bottom line, if you want quality work at a modest price then you are going
to have to do it yourself. You can find people to hire that will do
excellent work but they will overcharge the heck out of you.


That's a whole lot of generalizations. What stands out the most is that you
seem to be saying the plumber's got no business making money. And, it's
obvious that his fees include whatever overhead he has to deal with. What
business hasn't got overhead? What's important to me is that someone state
their fees clearly, and from that point on, it's up to me to decide what's
worthwhile. In this case, I know there's a decent plumber (somewhere) who
can do the work in X number of hours, and when it's done, I won't need to
think about it. My roof's another story. That's something I'll probably
replace myself, since I've done it successfully on a previous house.


Plumbers have a right to make money and people have the right to give it
to them. I on the other hand will do that stuff myself and use the
saved money to buy fun things like vacations or put it away for
retirement.

My father did everything himself and although he made much less than
everyone in our neighborhood, we always had a nicer home and had
everything we needed. When something broke at night or on the weekend
he was able to fix it instead of suffering through until a repairman
could come. If we had a flat tire, he'd change the tire, instead of
spraying a can of fix a flat into it.

I guess there are two types of people. People that will spend money and
people that won't. I grew up learning to save money and only hire
people to do work that I can't do myself. I see more and more people
out there who can't even replace a burnt out light bulb in their car or
replace a bathroom faucet.

Oh well, do what you want. I hope you have a good time at the office
while I am on vacation.