Do you hate having to pay exorbitant amounts of money for repair work? Do you feel your wallet getting lighter whenever your car makes a bad noise, or the washing machine stops turning?
Preventative maintenance is wonderful, but eventually things will break. When this happens, however, it does not need to set you back nearly as much as you may think. Often the repair work that needs to be done is much simpler than it looks. By doing the repair yourself, you are able to save yourself the cost of labor, and often save time waiting for the company or repair shop to fit you into their schedule.
You do not need years of education, or even instructional courses to learn how to perform these repairs, either. The internet has countless resources which can show you, step by step, how to fix a myriad of problems. You do not need an expensive manual or book to learn how to perform the repairs, either. If you already know what the broken part or problem is, a Google search can often find guides and instructions on how to replace or fix the broken part. If you do not know what the specific problem is, you can often find out by doing a search on the symptoms that you can see or hear.
Below are 3 easy repairs you can do yourself.
3 Easy Ways to Do It Yourself
1. Changing your brake pads
Changing your own brakes may seem like something best left to the professionals, but in reality it is actually one of the simpler repairs you can do. When bringing a car in to have the brake pads replaced, it will cost in excess of $150 dollars to do so. If you do it yourself, all you will need to buy is brake cleaner, lubricant, brake fluid, and the brake pads themselves. The cost of the brake pads will vary depending on the model of the car, but the other materials will typically cost you no more than fifteen dollars.
Places like Autozone offer lifetime warranties on most brake pad, which means that you only need to pay for them once, and they are free every time you need to replace them after that. So, after the initial changing, you will save $135 dollars or more every time you change your own brake pads. A great place to look for repair guides is the Autozone vehicle repair site. If you are not very handy, and have not worked on a car before, you may want to have a professional check your work after changing your brake pads for the first time.
2. Computer Virus Removal
When your computer starts acting strange, it may have a virus. Most people will bring it in to a professional, or pay for an expensive ant-virus program to take care of it. The majority of viruses can be taken care of by running several different free antivirus programs, Superantispyware portable, Malwarebytes anti-malware, and Kaspersky virus removal tool when used together will remove most viruses.
Buying a subscription to a paid antivirus such as Norton will usually cost around $40 for a year, and may miss or be unable to remove many viruses, and as such it would be a waste of money to purchase and download it. A computer repair shop will be able to remove the viruses, but will often charge $150 or more. So by using a few free tools, you can save anywhere between $40 and $150.
3. Fixing broken wires
Those with pets know well that they often chew through and destroy the power cable to various devices and appliances. Even when a pet is not to blame, kinks and age can cause a power cord to break, and in most instances it will signal that it is time to buy a new one. Fixing a broken cord is an easy repair, and does not take much time. All you will need is some electrical tape, and a wire stripper.
- First, disconnect the cord from the wall, and ensure power is no longer flowing to the device or appliance. If there are two wires in the cord, mark them clearly before starting.
- Cut the cord on both sides of the damaged area, removing it completely. If the cord has two separate wires in it, cut between the two a couple of inches, to separate them.
- Fit the wires into the appropriate sized grooves on the wire stripper, with about an inch of the wire protruding from one side, clamp down, and pull. This will separate the casing from the metal.
- Take the matching wires (which you previously marked), and twist them together.
- Finally, wrap them tightly and securely with the electrical tape, which will insulate and protect the splices.
The cord will then work just like new once again, saving you the cost of whatever the appliance or device cost. An alternative method would be to use wire nuts to secure the wires.
The Takeaway
These are only a few of the repairs that can save you money by doing them yourself, but there are infinitely more. Before taking something in to be repaired, or replacing it, take a few minutes to do a Google search on how to repair it. Many times you will find that a little bit of effort will save you a lot of money.
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