I am going to get on here later and list the amounts I've managed to save the last couple of days, but right now I just wanted to share a great stroke of luck that my hubby and I have just had.

We have been talking for a while about borrowing our friend's power washer to wash the outside of our house. We could not afford to buy one of our own--and the frequency of use wouldn't really justify it. My husband works for the phone company and today, he found a really nice power washer a guy was throwing out. He had left the water in it and didn't drain it all winter so the pump needs rebuilt. My hubby asked him if he meant to throw it out and the guy said yes, so my hubby took it. All we need is about $25 in parts and now we have a practically brand new power washer worth about $400. It is gas powered, and that means the water pressure will be twice that of the one we borrow from our friend which is an electric one.

Long story short, it is really good when you can learn to fix things on your own. My hubby's tinkering skills have really helped us save money. We have a 30-something inch television in our living room, which has its own built in entertainment center and surround sound speakers, and we got that for free. It just needed a $100 repair to work. My hubby had it repaired at a shop, he knew what was wrong with it, but didn't want to delve into internal TV repair. This goes to show that oftentimes, it still is more cost effective to fix something you already have or got for cheaper, than buy the equivalent brand new.

Another story about my husband's industriousness -- We used to have a boat. We got it for free too. It just needed about $200 of work to get it running again. It wasn't the most beautiful thing in the world, but it would go pretty fast and we could go tubing and skiing behind it. We had a blast in that thing. One year, we needed some money quickly, so we sold it for, if I remember correctly, $600 or $700. Now, this was 3 years after we got it and we used the heck out of it between that time.

Here's another one -- We sold our older car, and we decided to use the money to buy some jetskis we found for sale. The price we paid for both the jetskis, their tow trailer, and all the life vests and equipment, was the price that just one of these particular jetskis normally goes for, without a trailer or any extras! Normally we wouldn't make a purchase as large as that, but we live on a lake and we love to spend time out there. It was a wise purchase because we have used them every summer, every chance we get. It is something the whole family loves to do.

My hubby keeps his eyes open for a really good deals, and doesn't mind doing a little bit of work (or garbage picking) to get a good piece of equipment up and running. It is also funny how people will throw away something that only needs a few dollars of repairs on it and is otherwise in excellent shape.

I just wanted to share with you how excited and proud I am that I have a partner who is as dedicated to saving money as I am. Yay!

Again, taking some household repair classes or mechanic, electronic, computer or appliance repair classes can really help you in the long run!

MizLizzy