This post is part of a 30 days series called the 30 steps program to financial independence. You can check the list of other posts here.

Yesterday I talked about the importance of learning of to DIY. You will save time, money, and feel good about being able to perform those tasks. I love the idea of not depending on skilled people to live my day to day life. In an ideal world, I would even be able to kill my meat (that is on my bucket list, but so far I think it’s more probable that I become a vegetarian before I am able to kill animals!), or to build my own house.

I am far from that point at the moment, but slowly getting there. And being able to perform basic maintenance and repairs on my car, or at the moment motorcycle is the next step. It makes me so proud! BF always laughs when I perform simple tasks and feel like a million bucks for several days.

Your car or vehicle comes with a manual. Have a look at it. Download online how to guides, or videos on Youtube. There is always a tutorial on how to change the oil or the air filter on your car. The tools that you will need are pretty basic and just by doing the oil change once, you will get your money worth. The only thing you really need is to order an oil filter, buy the oil, and find a place to dispose of the dirty oil.

This is about as far as I am able to perform maintenance on my motorcycle, but I think I’m not doing too bad! In France people charge about $35 dollars for that 20 minutes job.

By performing maintenance and basic repairs on your car, you will save money, time, and be more independent, as well as able to negotiate a quote if you think the job is simple.