The following is a post by MPFJ staff writer, Jeff. Jeff writes about reducing waste, saving money and building freedom at his website, Sustainable Life Blog.
I have found that as I’ve gotten older, the skills to fix things (or the ability to YouTube the procedure) has come in quite handy when trying to keep costs down. If you own your own home, this is crucial, as you want to get things back to working order as cheaply and quickly as possible and may not have the spare money it takes to pay someone, or the time to wait for them to come to your place and do it.
Personally, I think there are plenty of reasons to at least try to fix something yourself, and here are a few of them.
Save Money
One of the first times that I realized how much I could save was when the heating element in our then-electric oven burnt out. It was quite the smoldering heap, and I had absolutely no idea how to fix it. We got a bid from someone, but they wanted over 100 bucks to come by and fix it, and I just didn’t want to spend that much money. I talked to a friend who suggested that I do a bit of research on YouTube.
I started looking and found exactly what I needed. Even though I’d never done work on any appliance before (much less an oven) I decided that I could at least give it a try. My oven was already broken, so I didn’t have much to lose.
I went to the appliance store and bought the part needed for $30 or so, and went in and fixed it. It didn’t take that much time and all I had to do was follow the video. Pretty easy way to save money if you ask me.
Nothing to Lose
The last time I ran into a problem with our fancy washing machine it wouldn’t work at all, and I had no idea what was wrong. I was not sure what the cost for repair was, so I did a little research and found the most common issue that our washing machine had was something caught in the pump, so I went downstairs to try and see if there was anything in there. Unfortunately, there was nothing in there so the problem persisted.
As far as I saw it before I started trying to fix it, I didn’t have much to lose. My washing machine was already broken, so if I broke it more it wouldn’t matter. A new one was most likely on deck anyway if our fix didn’t work, so why not at least try.
We ended up having someone come out and fix it for around $300, and it probably wouldn’t have been much more expensive if I had messed something up while I was in there trying to fix it.
Opportunities Everywhere
I used to believe that you needed many different skill sets and tools to get any sort of DIY project done, and that it was almost always better to hire someone. I’ve found that you can easily learn these yourself (mostly on YouTube, or through books) and easily fix things if you desire.
There’s also the question of having the correct tools, but I’ve found that once you get past a basic starter kit of tools, you can do most things. For the more specialized tools, you should ask around with friends or try a tool library.
Enough with the excuses, Give it a shot!
How about you all? What do you typically DIY? How much money do you think you’ve saved recently while doing it?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy https://www.flickr.com/photos/simplyarundotcom/8096301670/
