As frugal people, we at Consumer of None are fans of DIY. When it comes to food preparation, home maintenance, laundry, and cleaning, DIY is where it's at. However, if you live in a small space and don't have a garage, certain DIY tasks - like car and bike maintenance - become more difficult.
As I was biking home today, I popped my back tire (and possibly my front - to be determined). Luckily, I was about a 20 minute walk from home, so I was able to just make my way by foot. In the past, Mr. C of N has fixed broken tubes for me. Unfortunately, this week he's studying hard for an exam and we have visitors coming for the weekend, so he won't have time to fix it for me. And even if he (or, yes, I could fix it if I watched some youtube videos...) could do so, it's the back tire, so it's going to be a big greasy mess...in the middle of our 600 square foot condo. Good thing we took out the carpet! So I looked up some bike shops, and it turns out MEC will do it for $12/tire + the cost of the new tube ($5-7 bucks). If we had a house and a garage, we could put together a sweet setup and do the change ourselves. Nice, 12 bucks saved every time you get a flat! But buying a house would cost us at least two hundred thousand more than our current condo. Suddenly, paying the guys at MEC seems like a pretty good deal. When it comes to things you can DIY in your current space - cooking your own food, doing your own housework - DIY is always going to be cheaper. But buying a bigger space so you can work on your bike or car? The math just doesn't add up.
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