Anyone else celebrate cost avoidance when they're handy enough to do it yourself?
I had a diy frugal win today.
My riding lawn mower wouldn't start. So I whipped out the old multimeter and tested around the starting circuit. It quickly led me back to the battery having full charge but nothing else getting power downstream of that with questionable continuity under load.
It turned out the positive battery terminal bolt was so corroded that some of the nut and bolt were just plain gone! The white chalky buildup on what was left of the bolt was preventing sufficient charge from passing though. I replaced it with a clean "new" nut and bolt from my random hardware coffee can and it fired right up.
What if I didn't have the basic tools, knowledge, and parts on hand? I would have had to call around to repair shops to make an appointment, figured out how to get the mower there or pay them flatbed it there, then pay for diagnostic labor and possibly over repair? For just a poorly maintained battery terminal bolt! Meanwhile my already too tall grass would keep growing.
Nope, 10 minutes, $25 in tools that I've had and used for years, general self taught/YouTube skills, and a bolt that was leftover from something else. Okay even if I had to buy the bolt $0.25 and a trip to the hardware store? Beats the above paragraph.
I learned to DIY on many different topics just because I'm too cheap to pay someone else for something I can figure out myself. It's saved me so much time and money, and friends and family too. Humble brag over. But curious if anyone else gets this much satisfaction from the little cost avoidance wins like this?
April 14, 2021 at 07:57PM
