Things you do because you are tight!

[NightShade]

If I can figure it out I make it, pretty simple.

I hate spending money to heat the house during the winter and then dry clothes with even more hot air and then blow the heat outside. Got a long piece of vent hose and a five gallon bucket with some slots cut in the sides and some screen. Put it in the living room and warm/humidify the house at the same time since it's electric I figure what's the difference.

Build all my computers (minus the wife's laptop) and generally make them in such a way that I can upgrade and stay well ahead of anything you can buy at the store even a year or two down the road. Use the parts from the upgrades to build something for a family member who needs an upgrade. Built out two FreeNAS servers and a pfSense box as well using some used parts. The pfSense cost me so far a grand total of fifty bucks and I ended up with a dual L5630 with 8GB of ECC ram, and let's just say the slowest part in the loop is my modem but I have to buy a new one to get anything better there... But when I do upgrade the old one will probably go to my father's place. Found one modem that was thrown away (8X4 DOCSIS 3.0) with a built in wifi AP and it upgraded my step daughter's old DOCSIS 2.0 last year so I am not above getting something for nothing.

Do most everything I can on my own vehicles that I can being in an apartment. If I had a garage I would do it all... Did a homebrew cold air intake on my pickup, figured why spend two hundred on some tubing when I could buy pvc for next to nothing and do the same thing. Picked up a dual filter kit and can't stand the lines used (soft rubber) so I upgraded to hydraulic hoses so I never need to worry about them getting damaged. Have dismounted and mounted tires by hand, done engine and rear end swaps among other things.

Have done carpentry, drywall, doors, trim, floors, cabinets, cabinetry, plumbing, electrical, etc. Have literally had a maintenance guy come ask me for advice on stuff and I did the front brakes on his Jeep a couple weeks ago. Took parts from power chairs to make one good one and thinking about taking another and making a powered furniture dolly for the fun of it, maybe even turn it into a vehicle mover to just mess with people's heads. Made a seat to raise a normal height/size toilet for someone who is unable to use their legs, posted pics once of that somewhere. Did the tile floor for my father as well as the cabinets among other things while I was there.

Baked some cookies over the last couple weeks, Chocolate chip walnut, M&M pecan, Caramel pecan, and my wife's favorite almond butter. Generally fire up the oven when it gets cold out and make banana bread, a double butter raisin bread, applesauce bread, etc. I actually have a stand mixer for when I do stuff since it kills my shoulder to do it by hand and yeah I couldn't build it but if I could have I would have.

Built out a cable system at one point when I was in Lawton at an apartment building. Made a very nice TV guide channel as well to go with it. I posted pictures on the forum once before so I won't post them again. Ran an in house ISP for the same place as well as did the maintenance in the apartments so I could get REALLY cheap rent. Built one of my aquariums while I was living there and need to get a couple more going at some point but money is always an issue for stuff and that has been of little importance compared to other things.

And to top it all off I built my own rifle and working on my wife's. But no self respecting guy on here should be able to do that anyway.

Oh and I can sew as well too, nothing wrong with fixing your own socks or shirts if it needs to be done.

 

[beardking]

Name them and tell how if you wish.

I hate giving money for piddly things I can do myself. So I do them myself.. Unless there is no out of pocket or I am broken and can't do it. say a bad back or something.

I do all my own mechanic work on my vehicles.
Everything!
Build engine and trans and rear and suspension.
Paint and body, interior also. Yea Pull my man card I can sew.

Man, I need to get you in my garage. I have a 68 Mustang that could sorely use your skills. My laziness had become a problem and I just keep putting off learning the stuff I need to know to get it how I wasn't it to be.

 

[BuckFuller]

I too can and freeze stuff from the garden. I have enough okra and green beans in the freezer to run the winter. I canned about 10 pints of different flavor of pickles this last summer. And I dry my onions from the garden, make green tomato relish from my left over green tomatoes at the end of the season. I can jalapeno slices and make and bottle hot sauce from my red jalapeno, serrano and cayenne peppers, and I even canned some figs off a tree at the new place several weeks back. I grow a herb garden and dry most all the herbs that I cook with during the winter. I do this more for the taste of the home grown goods than for the savings, but there is certainly nothing wrong with saving some cash.

 

[John6185]

I was raised extremely poor and learned to make do and repair what I had. I've done that all my life form car to home and am now what they call a "senior citizen." It is my humble belief that all the hard work I have done throughout my life has contributed to my arthritis which is now giving me fits. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do and I did it!
I despise paying someone to do a job when I can do it better, they just run in and do at it and screw things up and leave with the money and never come back. I built a house and some claimed to be
Christians and if I had a problem to call did they come back? No! But the nonChristian did. Not to disparage Christians because I am one but some of these people use religion for a profit.

 

[SnowCamo]

I only get HBO when Game of Thrones is on.

 

[swampratt]

I have been burned by more So Called Christians so I have been in your shoes John6185.

all my cars and homes were fixeruppers.
What is HBO? Is it the same HBO that my friends had as a kid with the brown plastic box on top of the TV with the knob that you turn


What is this Game of Thrones?

 

[dlbleak]

i absolutely hate paying someone to do a job i can do. however, there have been a couple times where there was a time crunch or i didn't have the tools to do the job.
my cars have only been in the shop 3 or 4 times in 35 years, and thats all four of them. i don't think i've ever had a contractor to the house to fix something.
i figure i've saved around 50-60k over the years. that will buy a lot of guns!

 

[druryj]

I guess I am one of those who don't mind paying someone to do something for me I just plain don't want to do. I will paint walls and stuff, but no plumbing beyond a faucet's rubber washer replacement and no electricity beyond changing out dead bulbs. I can and will detail strip, clean, and replace parts on most firearms but beyond gassing up the cars, they go to the repair shop. I can sharpen knives. I can cook; I was the Faculty/Staff Campus Chili Champion at 3 different college campuses. I can BBQ with the best of them; my pulled pork is the best you ever throng a lip over. I can dig holes real good but that's about it as far it goes for yardwork. I can do laundry real good and can sew on a button. I can iron a shirt passably. I can start fires really well. I admire those of you who can do so many things for yourselves, I really do. But for stuff like canning? Wow. I can open a can, and that's about it.


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[cowzrul]

I box blade myself because I don't want to pay a dozer guy...wait, maybe it's because I can't get anybody to show up and do a job (christian or non-christian).
I clean my own pool because it costs an arm and a toe to have somebody else do it.
I wash my cars because I don't like the job they do at Red Carpet.
Does buying a starbucks venti latte when I am constipated because enimas cost to much count?

 

[aviator41]

I can not STAND having shop change the oil on my vehicles. It's not because I'm tight, it's because I just don't trust them to do it right. I don't mind doing it. it's not a hard job and can be quite a bit cheaper whe doing it at home. Especially on the big diesel.

The wife drives a Tundra. It's an odd duck when it comes to oil changes. A true PITA. have to remove the front skid plate and use a special wrench to get the filter element out. Such a major pain.

I also process my own game. It's just too expensive to have someone else do it.