What have you saved money by doing yourself?

[ThisPlumShark]

Painting

Cleaning - DH cleans the house in Saturday mornings. This started when I took the DC to swimming lessons because he can't swim, and has continue into their teens, where I taxi them around various enriching activities.

We had a cleaner once for 2 weeks. She was hopeless.

Friend got quoted £2.6k to get her hall painted and she thought that was reasonable. I was gobsmacked. So DH is painting our hallway right now! We were planning to get someone in but even half that quote felt too much.

I was quoted £600 by a tradie to do this stepping stone path, including digging out, cement base and stones. So, did it myself for £100 all in, including materials. Feeling chuffed.

Do you use the Karcher for window cleaning?

I mostly use toiletries and cleaning products. The Mandalorian is a can of Gillette shaving foam and the child is a green micro fibre cloth.

That’s outrageous but I’d say highly unusual. My painter and decorator charges £150 a day and can finish one large room or two smaller in two days,

A small but v safisying one yesterday- I can't find spray starch in the supermarkets anymore and had run out of the bulk buy i made from Amazon. Googled it and made my own - filled the old spray bottle with a mix of 1 Tbsp corn starch, water and 4 drops of Neom essential oil.
my shirts and bed clothes ironed perfectly and are lovely and crisp and smell divine. No more expenditure on starch, no air miles involved and no more single use plastic spray bottles.

I’ve always done all our decorating and all the gardening until I slipped a disc in my back three years ago - my husband took over cutting the grass and still does it now I’m recovered from surgery. I do basic DIY and my husband does almost everything else. I’ve done some basic plumbing in the past, and can plumb in dishwashers and washing machines. I don’t do things to save money, but because I grew up watching my parents always doing things like that and can’t imagine paying anyone to do something that I can easily do myself. The last two houses we bought were very dilapidated and it took us years to get our current house done, but we only paid people to do the major jobs that we couldn’t manage ourselves.

I don’t remember ever having any shop bought clothes as a child because my mum made absolutely everything we wore, including all my dad’s worn shirts - she even made him an overcoat, which he wore for years. I really regret not paying more attention to learning how to make clothes properly because the things I make aren’t very good! My parents made most of my toys as well, and I still have a collection of exquisite 1” tall dolls thst my mum made. My toys were so special and I made sure that I made as many things as possible for my daughter when she was younger. I’ve still got the prison I made for her naughty Sylvanians 😆

Yes, it’s really good.

Can I please ask how you did it? I have some v large ones bought on Gumtree they are cotton, lined. Assumed I’d have to get them dry cleaned.

Depending on the material…if they are cotton then use caution. I’m still bitter after ruining some lovely Laura Ashley curtains by running them through the machine!
My success story (with the help of the Housekeeping board) was that I washed some “dry clean only” curtains at 30°, on a delicate wash, buttoned inside a duvet cover to prevent damage from the metal eyelets & line dried them. It made me disproportionately happy that I didn’t have to pay to have them dry cleaned and they also smell nicer than dry cleaned items imo.

It was a local dog groomer education centre that links with a college and is open to the public. Enquiry at your local college. Good luck!