TodayIsTheDay(TITD): Do It Yourself (D.I.Y)!

I believe one of the simplest but most important tips to achieve financial independence is ‘spend less than you learn’. Do you agree? If you do so, D.I.Y will certainly help you to achieve ‘spend less’.

As a story teller (labelled by my husband), I cannot miss this story to tell you. One of my colleagues who has been looking after her finance quite well during her working life so soon be able to comfortably retire (unlikely to others) told me about her niece who wishes to live like her one day. Her niece is constantly having a financial problem even though both, she and her husband are working full time without any kid. How? Why? She doesn’t really know why she cannot save any money and permanently under the financial hammer. To me, the answer is very easy and clear to find. She spends more than what she earns for what she doesn’t need to spend (=waste). Let me tell her spending habits which she thinks fine (and alternatives which I think she should do).

· Built a brand new house with massive mortgage (instead of buying an affordable house with small mortgage)

· Going out for lunches and dinners regularly (instead of cooking at home when they are having health issues)

· Hire a cleaner regularly (D.I.Y)

· Hire a person for mowing for their small garden regularly (D.I.Y)

· Hire a person to clean their window regularly (D.I.Y)

· Hire a person to shampoo her dog regularly (D.I.Y)

I don’t think I need to make a longer list to find out why she is permanently broke. I am not sure why she thinks that she deserves to be served by others and paying their services is adequate. However, I am sure where her money is disappearing to and she will never get her aunt’s financial position without changing her attitudes on spending immediately.

Current society makes our life getting easier and easier as we can buy anything we want and need. As long as we pay, we can get any services that we possibly imagine nowadays. However, basic rule that I believe is ‘There is nothing for free.’ and the payments can easily eat up our potential savings. Unless you don’t need to worry about money, you need to constantly control your expenses and cut down unnecessary spending to reach financial independence. D.I.Y will definitely be a great help to reduce your expenses and also trust me, it will offer you a special pleasure.

Well, it is time to talk about what we did last weekends. One of our tenants moved out a week earlier than she was supposed to so my husband and I decided utilising the paid week for improving our garden studio. The floor pained last year looked awful even though we used quite expensive well-known brand paint so re-painting was out of options and our decision ended up to laying laminated floating floor by ourselves. We have already 4 times of experience in laying timber floors but not by ourselves. We tried very hard to find the best deal to save money but were not brave enough for the D.I.Y. Therefore, it was not a simple decision but we decided to do for five reasons. Saving money, learning new skills, spending weekends productively, spending time together, and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

We measured the studio size to figure out how much material we would need and bought them from the local hardware shop which is considerably cheaper than specialised floor shops.

As our sub-floor was concrete, we used a damp-proof underlay to avoid humidity and lay along the length of the room. The underlay has adhesive tape on one side so it was quite easy to lay for even beginners like us.

We started laying the flooring in one corner, along the longest stretch of wall with the tongue facing to the wall in the same direction as underlay (as we watched videos from YouTube before we started). Placing the plastic spacer blocks to maintain an expansion gap between the panel and the walls edge shouldn’t be ignored. Adjoining the two planks firmly was quite fiddly at the beginning but it got better later on especially my husband’s hammering got more precise.

The hardest job was cutting planks in order to avoid splintering the edges but $40 dollar electric jigsaw (wise spending) helped us exceptionally. Finalizing with similar coloured skirting improved the finish of our amateur flooring job and made us proud of ourselves. Kneeling on the floor for a day doubled up my normal knee pain. However, looking at the floor done ‘by us’ simply swiped away the pain.

As a frugal couple, we do most of things ourselves but laying floor was a definitely special experience to us. Whenever we try D.I.Y, we learn heaps of new skills and especially earn ‘self-confidence’ that can help us to deal with any problems. Laying floor was definitely harder than tapping keyboard and looking at excel spreadsheet all day in the office but we felt so much pleasure from what we have achieved.

There are many great reasons why I encourage you to try ‘D.I.Y’. Firstly, it is far cheaper than hiring someone and spending a fortune on their services. D.I.Y can offer you priceless rewarding for your effort that went into getting it done. You can also learn many new things and skills that make you self-sufficient. D.I.Y can give you a certain degree of freedom from depending on others’ services and, it is fun to do yourself.

Transforming the ugly floor to the stunning looking floor is a great pleasure. Especially, thinking about the money stays in my pocket makes me even happier. Hahaha…