Saving money is always good, but helping family is good too. Usually the two don't intersect, but when they do, its almost always a good thing. Even if its not the most optimal solution. At least that's my opinion. To that point....
Two summers ago I was able to re-shingle my mother's house. In doing so I was able to save her tons of money and that helped me save lots of money (via free use of her times share for quite a few years). Great to save money for myself, but it helped her too, so a definite win all around.
That leads to events this past month. I had a coupon for a free oil change at a nearby dealership. Of course it was for them to review my car and come up with all types of work that needed to be done on my car. Which I knew going in, but whatever. Before letting my car go the mechanic comes and points out everything I had left go for some time and how much it would cost to do. And oh yeah, I had to wait for hours to just get an oil change, but now that they are looking at my car, this work could be done quickly. I don't know the going rates, but I declined, figuring any place else would be better (especially after seeing how much they wanted for each piece of work). (Plus I was disgusted having to wait 4 hours for the car to be done as I used their online appointment service before going there!).
The next day thinking on it I remembered hearing about the SG-GF's son and how for the past few months he was running his own "on the go" mechanics service. I thought perhaps this would be good work for him and I might get it done for less. Actually I would have liked to have the work done for free as "family", but he is trying to start a business and deserves all the business he can get. He said he could do the work, and while visiting her for vacation with my son, he was able to do the work, and for maybe $100-$150 less than the dealership. Could I have got it done less somewhere else? I don't know, but really it doesn't matter, as getting a good enough price and helping him was certainly worth more to me than saving an extra $10-$20 elsewhere (if that was even possible).
Just ruminating I guess, but while saving money is good, there are other things to consider in life. Now I'm wondering if he can do other things on the car when I am there next time. Hmmmmmm....
Saving money & helping family - Win/win
August 4th, 2016 at 03:01 pm
August 4th, 2016 at 10:09 pm 1470348547
August 5th, 2016 at 08:32 pm 1470429161
Years ago when I was young and naive I fell for the free oil change thingy. Everytime I took it in, the oil change was free, but they said I needed a new air filter. Well, that got old fast. The last time I got the free oil change I informed them that they had just replaced the air filter the last time and not to touch it. Needless to say, I didn't get any more coupons for free oil changes.
August 5th, 2016 at 10:07 pm 1470434840