From trash to cash: a look inside blue-collar savings
Everyone likes a good deal – but not everyone wants to work for it.
Over Christmas break, I decided that, instead of spending thousands of dollars on a car, I’d take a chance on an old clunker and fix it up when I was home for the March reading week.
I ended up buying a 2006 Saturn Ion with 230,000 kilometres – and a few mechanical issues – in early January.
It needed spark plugs, an air filter, an engine oil change, the transmission oil changed, as well as rear-brake shoes, drums, and spring kits on both sides.
My friend, Cameron Trowsdale, and I worked with my father, Darby Steele, to fix the car on March 9. Darby has over 25 years in mechanical experience, as he’s been working as an industrial millwright with Cavendish Farms for over two decades.
But even before his career, my dad was fixing machinery as a teenager. His first car, bought at 17-years-old, cost $300 and needed repairs. Young and without mechanical experience, he’d ask people how to do repairs then go home and fix the car himself.
Skipping forward over 30 years, Darby is still fixing cars. This time, it was my first car we were fixing.
“Well there’s the cost savings, but there’s also the well-being feeling – that’s half of it,” Darby said. “When you do something yourself, you feel an accomplishment.”
That sense of accomplishment has been instilled in me since childhood. I have fond memories of picking apart machinery and learning how to fix it while spending time with my dad.
Cameron also enjoys tinkering with cars because he said it allows him to gain new skills while saving money.
“Everyone’s time is valuable. So if you’re already going to be spending half an hour sitting in a shop doing nothing while you wait for them to do your oil change – why not spend that half hour to do it yourself?” Cameron said.
“Learn from it, instead of paying for somebody else to do it.”
So, my dad, Cameron, and I set to work last Saturday night, listening to the local country oldies show on the radio as we fixed the car.
The repairs took us about five hours total and cost $540 in parts, although that price included a used set of rims and two tires.
While that sounds pricey, it would have been a lot more to take the car to a garage. Just to compare, I called up a local car garage to find a quote. They told me it would cost around $500 in labour to fix my car. Including the cost of the parts, it would have been well over $1,000 to fix my car.
I decided to choose the cost of a Saturday night working with Cameron and my dad over the $500 in a garage. Besides saving money, I also gained a few hours with the people I cared about.
And as my dad says, “You can’t measure that in any value – that’s quality time.”
