I know if I listen to my lawyer brother, he would just laugh at me and say I am a cheap a-hole and I should just pay to get the shit done when it comes to certain things, I can hear his mocking laughter in my head. Yet, I take pride in getting away with doing some of the things I do for myself, they manage to save me money and I am no worse for the wear. For example, with my Excursion, maybe I should have already traded it in and maybe I should be driving something newer, but here I am. Small things keep breaking and I have been lucky to just fix them myself, lately, it was the rear driver side barn door in the back. The cable that the lever pulls to release the lock broke, so I ordered a new and replaced it, yes, DD helped, but we still got it done at home for the cost of the cable and some tools I ordered, less than $50, plus I get to keep the tools for later.
Another good example is replacing the fence. I had been dreading the idea and cost, but it was in horrible shape, pretty much every time DD took his dog outside, it was a 50% chance the dog would escape, he couldn't just leave him out there by himself. Well, my neighbor to one side said he and a friend were going to take care of his fence if I wanted to contribute the cost of the materials for our half of the fence between us, that part cost me $300 which seemed more than fair, actually kind of a steal. I then decided if he could do it, we could tackle the rest of it ourselves and save a ton of money. I did a rough estimate and went and got roughly $600 worth of wood and we got on it two weeks ago. We had a small section left to do and we got it done this past weekend. I ended up getting another $140 worth of fence materials, it takes more screws than you think. I had bought a big box and we ended up using like three of them. At this point, I am about $1000 into the fence and that has now covered one side and the long back section. I need the last side and already talked to my other neighbor, she said she was into the idea, they had even started getting bids. I told her I am way too cheap to pay someone, we would gladly do the work for the section between our houses, if they wanted to kick in about $300, like I did with my other neighbor. She can get a bid and even decide to do it that way, but I am not paying more than $300, if they somehow beat us to the work, I offered to do it for that price.
Wife was then telling me her folks are starting to look at their fence and my father in law is thinking of doing the whole fence anew without asking his neighbors, just doing a fence within his property, and leaving the old fence up. The bids he has gotten have been $5000 to $6000, but why would you do this? I would at least look to ask my neighbors and try to split the cost. I feel lucky that I have enough knowledge and then I had the right manpower here with my boys and DD to help me. I even considered it a fun project being outside with the three boys getting it done. I jokingly told our neighbor, let me know what kind of bids you get, maybe I'll get my crew and do the rest of your fence for a lot cheaper. It took half a day to do the length on the back part, if we were going to make a little money, we could really get on it and probably do it in a day.
Does this make me cheap though, or am I just smart by tackling jobs like this myself? I just never like the idea of another man coming to my house to do things I should handle on my own.
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