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16 Ways to Do It Yourself

Do you do it yourself…. or do you pay someone to do it for you?

Sometimes we’ve been paying someone to do something for us for so long, it would never occur to us that we could do it on our own to save some money. And sometimes we just think we don’t have enough time to do something ourselves.

However, if you want to cut corners and save some money, it’s time to look at the things that you could be doing yourself.

Here are 16 ways to get started!

Do It Yourself Ideas

  1. Perform household maintenance. From fixing leaks to painting [1], do-it-yourselfers know how to save money.
  2. Cut your own hair. Or color it. Or give yourself a manicure or pedicure.
  3. Pay off debt. Instead of using a debt consolidator, buckle down, do it yourself, and create a plan for debt elimination.
  4. Clean your house. Paying a housecleaner every week adds up; clean it yourself or cutback on the frequency.
  5. Mow your lawn. Or shovel your sidewalk. Or any other landscaping activities that you pay others to do for you.
  6. Manage your investments. Paying more than 1% in management fees to invest for you can have a large impact on your portfolio. Use low-cost index funds [2] instead.
  7. Change your oil. If you are good with cars, this is probably an easy one to save money every few months.
  8. Make your lunch. It would be cheaper than paying the people at the deli to make it for you each day.
  9. Do your own taxes. Use TaxCut [3] or VITA [4] instead of paying a preparer.
  10. Cook dinner. We save a bundle of money now that we aren’t paying our nanny to cook dinner and do our laundry.
  11. Pay your bills online. Paying the post office to deliver your payments in the form of stamps can add up over time, even if you use discount postage stamps [5].
  12. Groom your dog. Learn to make Fido look his best without sending him to a groomer.
  13. Create your party trays. We hosted a birthday party recently and made our own fruit, veggie, and cheese platters for about half the price of the store-bought deli trays.
  14. Take your garbage to the dump. If you live in an area where you can still skip the garbage service in favor of dropping off your own garbage at the dump, do it and you’ll save the weekly fee.
  15. Make your own calendars. Instead of buying a calendar each year, print your own [6].
  16. Sell your own house. Does using a realtor to sell your house really recoup the standard 3% commission you’ll pay them?

Don’t have the skills to do some of these yourself and don’t want to learn? You can always consider swapping services with a friend or neighbor.

Add to the list with your own self-service money savers!