If you are only going to use something on rare occasions its generally thought that its more cost effective to hire those items - rather than buy them and have them sitting around gathering dust and barely getting any use. However as the range of what you can hire these days has dramatically increased and its now possible to hire almost anything imaginable from high end clothes to Diy power tools, indoor/outdoor furniture, garden equipment, plants, cars and more - which do you prefer to do - when needing something that would be used infrequently - hire those items or buy them outright ? Also are there any items that you have found to be better value for money hired rather than bought out right and are there any items that you would never - under any circumstances - ever consider hiring - even though it would be more cost effective do so ?
It is all about learning what the cost per use is going to be, and by working this out you should be able to make up your mind about what is the most cost effective in the long term. If you know that you're only ever going to wear something once, and it costs less to hire it, then of course this would be a much more preferable option. So yes, it is literally just about weighing up what you need, and deciding which choice would be right for you at the time.
This is true you have to know the value of the item and how often you will use it to determine if the cost to purchase is too high and it would be more cost effective to hire it than to purchase it. We usually rent the carpet cleaning machine because we don't use it often enough to purchase one and they are large machines that I do not want to take up the room to store it.
I'd first find out if I could borrow what I need from neighbors. Good neighbors will know friends of theirs who can help you out. If no one has what I need then I'd choose the option that will be cheaper for me. I'd only buy something I use rarely if I intend to make money renting it out to neighbors and anyone else who might need it. If not I'll hire the equipment I need for that one occasion.
If I'm only going to use it once then I'll just rent it. If I'm going to use it infrequently then I'd have a tougher time deciding, but it just depends on the item, really. I once had to paint the living room, for example, and paying the painter and the fee for his equipment was already high enough that I figured I should just buy the machine and skip his extra fee altogether even though for now I would only need it once, because I know I'll probably be able to find some use for it in the future and I'm already paying a similar price so I thought it would be economical just to buy it for myself.
I think for construction purposes it's better to hire the equipment needed, since they can be expensive to buy. For long trips, renting a car is ideal too if you're going on a long trip as compared to just commuting, at least when you rent a car it's more convenient.
When we had our fence re-constructed because it was leaning dangerously (maybe due to faulty architecture), the contractor rented a cement mixer upon our prodding. Mixing cement manually is a lot of work and it entails too much time. When a mixer was used, the 3 days of work was cut down to 2 days in terms of the cement mixing.
