307
What are your "poor person" money life hacks?
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
307 points (96.9% liked)
Ask Lemmy
26749 readers
461 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Absolutely.
Changing the oil in your car only requires a spanner, pan, and household stuff like cloth rags. You can do it in your driveway faster than you can drive it round-trip to the dealership. I've saved heaps over the years.
House painting is a good skill. I knocked over $20k off my house build price by picking up a paintbrush. It was about 2 weeks of work and maybe $1k in supplies.
Learn computer maintenance. Like, how to format it and start over. How to diagnose and fix small issues. So many people buy new computers just because their old one is clogged with cruft. I fixed computers that others threw out, and avoided upgrade costs for decades.
Most importantly - learn to cook. Home cooking is so much cheaper.
Are your car services limited to changing the oil? Because mine aren't. They include all kinds of checks for degrading parts (filters, brake pads etc), and while I could possibly do all that myself if I had the time and could get hold of a shop manual for my car, I'd also need to acquire the parts first. On the other hand, my car doesn't need changing oil outside of the 15000km service interval.
What you absolutely should learn is how to change a tyre. So many people don't know how to do it and have to get assistance when they have a flat...
When I was new to it, I would just do the oil, then get the shop to do the other stuff. Fluids and filters are the low-hanging fruit. They charge a huge amount for something that requires little skill or equipment.
Once the dealer quoted me $300 to change the radiator fluid. I didn't even own a garden hose at that point, but I bought one, figured out how to flush coolant, and saved about $250.
Later on I started doing brake pads, gearbox oil, suspension bushes and little tidbits. The only "service" I paid for in the last 3 years is a head gasket replacement. Hopefully I get another 20 years out of it.