I'm a lifelong cyclist, always cycled, will cycle as long as I'm able. Never got around to doing all the maintenance myself though, besides fixing punctures. Never had the tools, never had the patience, never had the confidence. I only have one bike, which I use every day, so making a mess of it would put me out of business for a few days as I would have to haul it to the nearest repair shop, wait for it to get fixed etc. I've relied on bicycle repairmen to keep me mobile, and they've done a great job so far.
I needed new tyres front and back, and new brake pads on my front wheel. I found the tyres on sale online, and had them delivered yesterday. I also got some brake pads. I would normally bring it to the local bike shop after booking a slot, and they would fit the parts, and I would pay the labour. When shopping for the tyres, I came across a small bike toolkit with tyre levers on sale, which I bought thinking I might have a go at it myself. It turned out the little toolkit had all the parts I needed to change the brake pads as well as the tyres. So I thought, what the heck. Let's give it a shot at fixing it all, how hard can it be?
So here I am, a few hours later, and I managed to replace both tyres, and front brake pads! I survived the test drive, and so did the bike, still in one piece.
It wasn't as bad as I expected, and now I feel like I could do even more next time I need to fix stuff. It has really given me a confidence boost, I feel more capable now, so much so, that I've ordered a new rear handbrake as the current one is on its last leg (or hand). Looking forward to hopefully coming out of that exercise successful as well.
This is to say that even if you have 10 thumbs like I do, you might just be able to do your own bike maintenance.
That was exactly my attitude, "I can't do this", and for a long long time, I couldn't, because that's what I was telling myself.
I know you wrote that you couldn't afford to fix your bike, so you fixed it out of necessity. I will still applaud you for doing that, it's not everyone's approach to such a scenario. And now, you have skills, and a much more positive position.