the effort to go from $2K/month to $1.5K/month is probably not worth it if you have the option of contracting yourself out; at bay area computer janitor contracting rates, (and I imagine good devs are more expensive than SysAdmins.) that's less than 8 hours of work. If you are good and have contacts, you can realistically expect twice as much; but if you are good, $500/day is reasonable to expect without expending too much marketing effort.
Being frugal is good too... but sometimes spending money makes sense, I think. Me, for example, I drive a $3,000 car, and pay $750 in rent. (I live in the south bay, my girlfriend and I split the rent on a $1500/month duplex) . Paying more isn't going to free up any time, so I don't. But I do hire someone to clean out my house once a week; It seems like a big win, as that saves me a lot of time, for a relatively small amount of money.
Being frugal is good too... but sometimes spending money makes sense, I think. Me, for example, I drive a $3,000 car, and pay $750 in rent. (I live in the south bay, my girlfriend and I split the rent on a $1500/month duplex) . Paying more isn't going to free up any time, so I don't. But I do hire someone to clean out my house once a week; It seems like a big win, as that saves me a lot of time, for a relatively small amount of money.