My 6 year old Mazda 3 finally hit 100,000 miles about a month ago. Since I’ve never done any major maintenance service to my car, I took it to the Mazda dealership for an oil change. They are slightly more expensive but it’s worth the price since they also do a full inspection on your car. We had them diagnose the problem, then we fix it on our own.
Sadly, within a month, I’ve spent about $400 in car parts. On the bright side, I saved about $700 in labor cost by using John’s labor. I bought new shocks and struts online (cheaper than getting it from the store) and in order to save money, John decided to take on the task himself (even though he had not done it before). He did some online research and asked around for some tips. He spent almost all day replacing all 4 of my shocks and struts. That saved us about $400 in labor cost.
We also need to replace a broken engine mount and transmount. Again, I bought the parts online after doing some comparing with the car parts store here. The parts arrived tonight. My loving husband who just had a late night from work, decided to work on it right away. It was 9 something at night! Thankfully, replacing the engine mount was a small task. He was able to complete the task within 15 minutes. And the dealer wanted $115 in labor cost to replace that for us!? This weekend, he will work on the transmount which is a little more complicated. Mazda dealer wants $195 in labor cost to replace the transmount. Again, I will save the labor cost by having my hand dandy husband fix it.
Working in the dark and cold. You can see in the picture that one of our neighbors has already put up christmas lights. We put up our Christmas lights & tree the day after Thanksgiving. We are ahead of the game as well! Our Christmas lights are not as nice as our neighbors, just some simple LED lights around the roof of the house. We decided not to spend so much on the lights this year and wait till after Christmas. They usually go on sale after Christmas. We will buy more lights and Christmas decor after Christmas for next year! Yes, we are realistic people, in other words, cheap.
the broken engine mount
Sure is nice when you have a handy husband. Saves lots of money from hiring somebody to do it. Labor cost is outrageously expensive here. When I see him working on the car, I almost (keyword= almost) forgive him for not having a passion to cook. 
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