Tuesday's Tips

Good afternoon future millionaires! It's time for another installment of Tuesday's Tips, and once again this week's tips are taken from events in my life.

1) Try to find a good mechanic for auto maintenance. I can't even stress how important this is in cost saving. Recently the air conditioning in my 2003 Corolla stopped working, so I called some places to see how much it would cost to check. Just to have my car checked would be at least $40 (at a Toyota dealership, a Wal Mart, and other auto repair places). So I guessed maybe the freon was low and needed to be flushed and refilled. I called those places again and the cheapest for that work was $160. I was just hoping it would be a freon issue, and hoping not a compressor issue. If it was those places were going to charge more than $450 parts and labor. I don't think so. So I called my mechanic friend Joe, who did work on my girlfriend’s car a couple of years ago, and asked him what he would charge. He told me to bring it on over so he could check it out. When I got to his place he walked to my car with freon to see if the system would take any. It wouldn't so he checked a few other things and then said either the compressor was out or a fuse needed to be replaced. He didn't charge me anything and said to bring it back so he could look at it for a few hours. He said he would only charge me for parts, which he gets at cost, and maybe $20 for labor. There is a distinct possibility that I'll pay less than half of what the other places would charge, and he is very honest about the car's problems and even offers to teach me how to do the maintenance for future reference.

2) Ask your friends and relatives if they know a good mechanic. That's how I found out about Joe. My girlfriend’s car was having problems, and a friend of mine said he knew a great mechanic that does work cheaper than anyone in town. It turned out to be a great lead because I don't take my car anywhere but to him, and I've saved $100's because he doesn't price gouge. I even pay him a bit more than he asks for because he ends up charging less than $5/hour for his labor on average.

So take it from me. Automobiles are a very costly thing to own and maintain, so why not try to save where possible, and help out the little guy in the process.

I'm on a 168 hour break, so until then Stay Tuned...