Want to Save Money? These DIY Skills are Essential

Being able to do things yourself without the help of experts can save you a lot of money in the long run. Here are the areas where you should consider boosting your DIY skills!

Home repair

When most people think about DIY, they think about home repairs. And there are loads of areas to consider here; plumbing, electricity, roofing, breaks in walls and tiles, painting, etc.

The problem here comes when you get a little too eager to save money. While there are some simple jobs you should take on – and there are plenty of good guides online that will show you how – you should also acknowledge when a job is a little too dangerous for you or requires a skill you don’t have. Only the simplest plumbing jobs should be DIY’d, and electrical and roof work should just be left to the experts.

Car maintenance

Car repairs are another matter entirely; what we’re talking about here is the basic maintenance tasks you should be completing fairly often. Checking tire pressure, changing oil, checking the coolant, testing brakes – these aren’t things you need to leave to the professionals.

Getting car maintenance done by others can become very expensive – and this generally means that you don’t end up doing it as often as you need to, anyway! Learn how to grasp some of the basics yourself.

Food growth and cooking

Home cooking is often seen as the most expensive way to get your daily food. This myth may have been started by companies who make pre-prepared foods! The fact is that home cooking when done correctly and efficiently, can save you hundreds of dollars every year.

Plus, now you can make restaurant-quality dishes with quality appliances. For example, this Anova review shows how simple its sous vide cookers make it to get all the benefits of this precise cooking method.

Consider checking out a frugal home cooking website such as The Cheap Recipe Blog. If you’re really serious about this, then consider growing whatever produce your garden can handle! This ensures you save as much money as possible – as well as ensuring you get the freshest ingredients you can get.

Holiday decorations and gifts

Easter. Christmas. Halloween. Independence Day. Thanksgiving. Valentine’s Day. There are so many holidays throughout the year. Have you ever added up how much you spend on these things annually? It’s probably not a pretty figure. You should look up ways to bring the DIY mindset to things like gifts, decorations, food, and costumes. MERS Goodwill has some advice for the Easter holidays.

A lot of people assume that bringing a DIY approach to the holidays means that you don’t get the quality your family should get on these special occasions; but if you get skilled enough, then that simply won’t be true!

Sewing and mending

Never underestimate how much money you can end up saving over time if you know how to repair your own clothes – or even make your own in the first place. Sewing and mending are DIY skills that a lot of people assume they don’t need – but it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll come across something at some point that will make you wish you could do it.

Holes in your socks and pockets, tears in your shirts, splits in your pants – the common solution is to simply buy new clothes. But when you can simply fix these things, it becomes clear pretty quickly just how much money you’re throwing down the drain on replacements.

Find more DIY ideas for around the home here with these free stencil decor ideas.

 

Top photo: She’s doing these repairs to save money. Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain.