If you buy cheap, you buy twice? Is the do-it-yourselfer really saving money, or does he just feel better aboutre being proud of his work and justifying the purchase of a new table saw with the prospect of building a new table? If the new saw isn’t cheap, how is it supposed to save? We’d like to give you some ideas about DIY home improvement to save money.
A clear boundary must be drawn here between the do-it-yourself talent who carries out small repairs himself and the hobby do-it-yourselfer who is completely absorbed in doing everything himself. Do-it-yourself can save costs, but as a hobby it can also cost a lot of money.
Because with the second, passion ultimately prevails, which likes to ignore the cost of many a beloved tool in the workshop or the wood used in DIY home improvement. We want to take a closer look at both aspects and give some tips on how the hobby of “do-it-yourself” does not inevitably lead to financial ruin.
Tips On How To Save On DIY Home Improvement
A hobby almost always causes costs that are gladly accepted. After all, hobby means relaxation and is a welcome balance to the daily grind. DIY, crafting, building and home improvement are no exception.
Even if something is created here that saves the purchase of furniture, decoration or tools, in the end there are more costs than savings. However, money does not have to be thrown around and if you do your homework carefully, you can keep the expenses for a very nice hobby relatively low.
1- Equip the workshop wisely for home improvement
The fact is, there is no perfect basic equipment for a workshop! Therefore, do not make the mistake of following guidelines from the internet or recommendations in forums.
Certainly there are tools like the jigsaw that are used in almost every workshop.
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But whether you really need them depends entirely on your work. Start your hobby slowly, get to know yourself, try yourself and you will see what you really need. It can also be helpful to look around in other workshops. Here you can certainly be active and quickly notice whether you enjoy the work or not.
2- DIY store brands and discounter tools can be useful
Everyone knows sayings like “If you buy cheap, you buy twice” or “We are too poor to buy cheap”.
However, they do not always have to be correct, which can have various reasons. Do you want to try out a tool? Then grab a cheap model. How often are expensive tools bought in order to pay attention to quality and then get dusty because they are not actually used.
If you had opted for a cheap model when you first bought it, the loss would have been less. A good example is the router. Many do-it-yourselfers can no longer imagine life without them and even own several for different applications for home improvement.
Others, stung by the hype, buy an expensive model and then work with it doesn’t suit them. There’s no shame in saying “I can’t handle it”. But it would be a shame to spend $200 on a good device and then not use it. There are cheap ones for as little as $40 and they work too.
Quality, performance or service life are often decisive here. But that doesn’t mean they don’t do their job. If you like the router, the inexpensive tool can remain as a second device or later be installed in a router table.
3- The hardware store helps quickly, but rarely cheaply
Men love the hardware store. It offers hands-on tools, a huge selection of building materials and, above all, it inspires ideas for the next DIY projects in the field of home improvement.
The “do-it-yourself frenzy” quickly arises and the shopping trolley is filled with the required material. Now it’s time to keep a cool head. Do I start the project immediately? Don’t I have to plan something first? Can I possibly wait a few days for the required materials?
Honestly, most hardware store purchases are spontaneous, ill-considered and result in high expenses. It’s rarely cheap. It makes more sense to plan projects well and compare prices. It is advantageous that many hardware stores now put their offers online and make it easier to compare prices.
Screws, hinges and other fastening materials are examples of this. If you pay $17 in a DIY store for two concealed hinges with damper and click assembly, identical concealed hinges are available from Amazon in packs of 10 for $12. It is just as clear with screws. 150 Spax universal screws cost about 14 $ in the hardware store.
Also available from Amazon is the same screw size with a better drive for 19 $ with 500 pieces from Spax. An important rule is therefore to buy tools and materials with care and to compare prices as early as the project planning stage.
4- Stock up on consumables, but wisely
The larger the pack, the more you can even save and over time you also get used to materials that are to be processed in a similar way, so that the same screws are often required. So there is nothing wrong with buying screws in units of 1,000. If you have found a good supplier here, it even makes sense to order several sizes at the same time. This saves shipping costs.
5- Inexpensive tools through B-stock
Does every tool have to be new, or does damaged packaging bother you? If not, you can look out for second-hand goods and used items. Amazon offers the Amazon Warehouse Deals for this, in which all used and good items are listed as well as in other categories.
The advantage is of course that these are checked and well described according to use or damage. The same works on Ebay, although not as well sorted.
Looking for a seller who offers B-stock (not used). Usually there are companies behind this who contractually buy up all returns from mail order companies and online shops for little money and then offer them as B-goods themselves.
6- Use the low price guarantee in hardware stores effectively
The low price guarantee from hardware stores is a nice thing, but unfortunately the comparison is often difficult. Therefore, subscribe to newsletters from hardware stores in the area and compare special offers with the prices in your hardware store.
But focus mainly on hardware stores that are not located directly in the village or in the neighboring village. Many hardware stores limit their low price guarantee to a specified distance, you should take advantage of this, because it is difficult for the hardware store employees to keep an eye on all the offers in order to adjust their own prices.
But even if you’ve found a good offer, you shouldn’t just put the brochure on the table in the hardware store and expect to get the tool at the offer price minus the low price guarantee. Because the employee can quickly say that the good piece costs just as much with you – it just wasn’t advertised.
Important! : Before you start planning your DIY home improvement project, you should definitely read what’s written below about home improvement!
DIY Home Improvement and Repairs: Doing Small Repairs Yourself Saves Money
The tap is dripping, the drain is clogged or the V-belt in the washing machine has snapped. Clever do-it-yourselfers know how to get by and fix such problems without having to hire customer service or craftsmen.
The hardware store helps with typical everyday problems with building materials, seals and spare parts for the outdated sewer pipe. Even new lines made of plastic or copper can easily be laid using materials from the hardware store. It becomes more critical when repairing special devices such as washing machines or dishwashers.
The internet can often help here. Many shops offer spare parts by manufacturer number and even large manufacturers such as Bosch provide help with detailed exploded views and precisely marked spare parts, which can even be ordered quite cheaply.
It is even made easy for the experienced do-it-yourselfer to make the repairs inexpensive and thus save money. So what’s to stop a do-it-yourselfer who doesn’t have two left hands from tackling small repairs?
In these areas, the do-it-yourselfer finds clear advantages over the repair service or a contracted do-it-yourselfer. Of course, you have to weigh up when repairs are still worthwhile or when it is more effective to buy a new device.
Water, mechanics, replacing a gasket, changing the faucet. These are repairs that you can definitely dare to do. In addition to our own limits of expertise, one thing is particularly important – safety. This can already be endangered if devices use water and work with electricity at the same time.
Do-It-Yourself Work When Building Your Own Home Lowers The Costs
Do-it-yourselfers work with wood, repair defective things, but in many cases also come from a trade that allows them to do a lot of tinkering and building at their own home. This starts with the laying of water pipes and does not have to end with the covering of the roof.
Anyone who is planning or building their own home or is in the process of renovating an older property knows what costs are involved and what craftsmen cost.
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Nobody wants to question their professional competence, but a lot can also be implemented on your own and with no less quality. A simple example is the installation of door frames. In the order that can eat up a lot of money.
However, using simple door frames and following a few tips that are easy to find on the web, almost everyone is able to undertake such work themselves for home improvement. The only disadvantage here is almost always the time required.
The trained professional usually has better tools and is significantly faster with the implementation of practiced movements. If the required working time is not an obstacle, you can purchase the required building materials yourself in the hardware store and implement a lot more cheaply yourself.
If you cover your roof yourself for 6000 $ material costs and thus create a finished roof, which would cost 22,000 $ at a roofing company, you bring virtual 16,000 $ equity with you. In this way you can even build a house without any equity.
Let’s say a home was created in the editorial group, which has a value of around $250,000 as determined by the architect, but only costs $140,000 due to personal contributions. The owner’s equity amounted to more than $100,000 just from the own manual implementation for home improvement.
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DIY Can Get Expensive As A Hobby (Be Careful)
After initially distinguishing between the do-it-yourselfer who carries out small repairs himself and the hobby do-it-yourselfer, we would now like to go into the second group: the hobby do-it-yourselfers, woodworkers and DIY artists.
The second headline, which stands for the rejection of cheap tools, also refers to this. Do-it-yourselfers and DIY fans who have turned their skills into a hobby work or craft on a completely different level.
Of course, it is just as easy for them to carry out small household repairs themselves and thus save money for the craftsman, but they also indulge in their hobby, which often requires more financial resources than is saved by implementing their own projects.
This results in projects that would be much cheaper to buy or basically make little sense because they are actually not needed and only serve their own ego. “I wanted to try it out and implement it.” Who really needs a mobile phone projector like the one on the right, which works but is definitely not suitable for a movie night.
So now that we have discussed the building blocks of getting started on your next home improvement project, it all boils down to selecting one that best suits your needs and goals. To keep up to date with useful tips and tricks, remember to subscribe to our newsletter! Here’s wishing you joyous success on all of your home improvement endeavors!