outsourcing my life

I mentioned in this post about getting a concierge service, delivered through a flat fee, through my credit card provider. Here’s an update on some of the tasks I’ve put them to in the past week:

Sourcing Adobe Creative Suite at the lowest possible price
Determining routes, pricing, and schedules for a coast to coast trek across the USA in the next few months (which, incidentally, I am totally pumped for)
Finding and booking a van of sufficient size to pick up some furniture that my wife bought on eBay for our new house (plus all of the requisite “find us the best price”)
NEGOTIATING A BETTER PRICE on the rental of the ute… This was a pleasure to outsource
Chasing up Microsoft to find out about their rebate program for people who’ve inadvertently purchased counterfeit software (yep… I got scammed. I will post on this shortly – lots of lesson learnt.)
Booking the nicest hotel possible for the lowest possible amount for a romantic one nighter in Sydney next week

All up, I’d say we’ve used about 40 hours of their time. At $2USD per hour that’s $80USD of value ALREADY REALISED in the first week against a $265AUD annual fee. Not bad…

The best bit has been watching my wife get used to the idea of outsourcing… Her and the concierge service operators are on “known by voice” basis now.

Oh, and another benefit I realised over offshore outsourcing, all of the concierge services provided by my card provider are managed right here in Australia by native English speaking operators.

Whether the actual grunt work is farmed out to India or the Phillipines I am not sure, and to be honest I really don’t care – It’s just nice not to have to clear a communication hurdle when downloading our latest requirements.

Next week – I’ve already got plans. This is SO MUCH FUN!