This is practically a specialty of mine.
I use to work of cars, but they did mostly get more complicated and in general rarely break down anymore.
I use to build computers, but largely just repair them now when needed. Laptops though are tough, desktops and towers are still pretty easy. Built or repairs dozens over the years. So each of these add up to a good savings of money.
I even repaired a 17" Princeton monitor, back in the days when this was still a big ticket item. The video cord wasn’t well secured in the manufacturing and it started acting up with any movement. I opened up the back, secured the cable with cable ties and soldered the poor connections back up.
Boiler unit, I do my own yearly oil filter change, nozzle change and cleaning the heat exchanger. I also have replaced 3 parts on it at this point, each of these repairs would have cost hundreds if not a $1000 and instead it cost me the part.
My water heater is electric and a bit shitty. I have replaced both thermostats and a few years ago the lower heating element after determining it had failed. By old Navy galley heating coiling troubleshooting as an electrician really came in handy on that one. Total cost was under $60 for these repairs, not sure what it would have cost me.
I replaced parts on my old dishwasher nursing another 8 years out of it. Built a part for the microwave to re-secure the handle. Rebuilt the bottom frame of my otherwise great Weber Genesis grill. I built all the replacement pieces out of scrap metal I had in the basement. In the last house I rewired the wall oven, getting it working again. I’ve dismantled the washer to replace 2 key parts on it. It is an excellent heavy duty super capacity washer and I didn’t want to replace it.
I still do minor car repairs, light side view mirrors, replacing power window motors and little things like that. The day before my daughter was heading back to college, the Corolla started making horrible noises, we got it up on my ramps and I crawled under and found it was just the protecting shield for the exhaust had 2 fasteners fail. I built a new method to secure it, stronger than the original.
I’ve also spent the last 9 weeks overhauling my house. I’m out of work and may be moving soon, so it was a great time to get a lot done. For the first 7 weeks I was putting in 60 hour weeks and got a huge amount down. I’ve blogged it, but on another site. Highlights was wire brushing off the front rails and rust-oleuming them back to gleaming perfection. Reshaping the front door to eliminate the damage done by an evil groundhog and painting it. Then cleaning off almost the entire house. Cleaning up the front walk thoroughly. Bleach scrubbing the cement patio in the back. Weeding and making a nice little 9’x9’ area next to the front door.
Completely overhauling the walk-out basement doors, the outer metal doors needed touch-up, but the stairwell needed scraping and painting and the inner wooded doors were in bad shape and I did a paint cleanup and added plastic kick plates for only $30 that completely changed these doors.
There is actually a lot more that I did. Today I was painted the ceiling in the Dining Room. I am nearly done now though and hopefully will pass a final interview in a few weeks and be at a new job and putting my house on the market shortly after that.