Last Saturday, after pondering potential saving money tips, I paid a visit to my neighbor, who is a fairly good car mechanic. Of course, since its mid-summer, everyone wants to have air conditioning in their car. Sure enough, he was in the process of installing an air conditioning unit into an old Subaru station wagon for his wife. What had happened previously is that he had replaced the engine in the car way back last fall and didn’t replace the air conditioning at that time because, well, winter is coming and she wouldn’t be needing it.

We hardly need to mention that he saved over $1500 replacing the engine himself. Talk about saving money tips! But that’s a story for another day. Most of us don’t have the tools or experience to undertake a project of that immensity. Today I’m just going to talk about my little adventure, which was helping him install this unit that afternoon. I spent about two hours helping him get the pieces to fit, and find all of the bolts that were needed, and helping to get some of the smaller bolts started in the tight little places where he couldn’t get his hands. This mechanic work is a lot more fun when there are two of you.

It’s not that I didn’t have anything to do for those two hours, but I actually made time to help him because he’s my friend but also because I know he will return the favor. Sure enough, we’re going to replace that valve cover gasket on my little Mazda in a few days. I already found out from the shop in town that it would cost $80 for them to replace it. So with the actual cost of the gasket about $12, I’ll be saving about $68 on this little project. Such a sweet deal.

I got to thinking, what if I didn’t have any mechanical skills to help in the first place? Or what if I didn’t just happen to have a neighbor that was a good mechanic? It turns out that in that past I’ve been able to do other things to help my neighbor. It also turns out that I just met a guy at the gym that’s a really good bike mechanic, and he wants someone to help him move next week. And it just so happens that I need some help with my bike. This seems to be pretty common for a lot of people. We just happen to meet people that can help us by being out and being ready for it. I think opportunity arises when you’re ready for it.

Check out my free Five Saving Money Tips in the column to the right for more ways to make your life better.

Til next time,

Hal