Saving Money with Girl Math
I made $2,900 in one hour after doing some light girl math 🤓
You heard me right – two thousand nine hundred dollars. The important backstory you need to know is that:
I'm not the best at driving… parking… anything car related, and
I can also be a procrastinator
So a few year ago, ~somehow~ my side mirrors got knocked loose. Not the housing, the actual mirror inside was loosey goosey, and so ~sometimes~ the mirror on the driver's side would fully pop out and dangle, and I'd have to roll down my window WHILE DRIVING to pop it back into place, which I'm sure you think seems incredibly safe and normal.
I was getting my oil changed not long after this happened the first time, and after telling them about the whole ordeal, asked them to give me a quote for how much it would be to fix them. Tell me why this man told me it would be THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!
I real life laughed in his face. (Money doesn't grow on trees my guy!) He explained that the process was involved and was more than just swapping the mirror and I took his word for it. What do I know? I'm no mechanic. I just get in, push the start button, and try my best to stay on the road.
After hearing that insane number, I decided this was something that I would just keep dealing with. The minor inconvenience of the loose mirrors (or the mirrors pointing, unhelpfully, directly at the sky) wasn't worth $3000 to me.
After literal years of this annoyance, just a few weeks ago the driver's side mirror got worse.
To be honest, idk how it could have gotten worse but it did and my blind spot was now astronomical. 😵💫 On a whim, I decided to see what the process was like to fix them, so I could really understand why it would possibly cost $3000 and gauge if it was now worth it.
After a quick Google search on my pocket supercomputer and a 5 minute YouTube video (shoutout 5150GringoGarage) I learned that it actually isn't hard at all.
🧰 I asked my more vehicularly-inclined brother where I should order parts from, got them in the mail within the week, and decided to cosplay as Mechanic Barbie. My mom told me I could do anything I wanted when I grew up, and this week that looked like replacing my car's side mirrors while listening to Sabrina Carpenter. Just like every other mechanic, right? 👩🏼🔧
It took exactly 45 minutes of my time, one tool, and 100 of my dollars. When I say it was easy… I mean it was easy. The mirrors are held on by three bolts behind a plastic cover, and the wires that power them plug in like a phone jack. 🛠️ It was the opposite of difficult. And now my mirrors work again, which let me tell you, is the height of luxury. I'll never take it for granted again. And if I'm doing my girl math correctly… I just made $2900 from that, right?
To be real, the toughest part of the whole experience was reckoning with how long I waited to do this.
I procrastinated and put it off for so long because I thought it was gonna be expensive to have done or difficult to do myself… and it wasn't a big deal at all to finally do it. I didn't have to struggle and stress about them for this long!
Let this be a sign to you – do the thing you've been putting off. Your brain is probably making it seem like a much bigger deal than it actually is. And if you need help with any mechanic work, only call me if you need new side mirrors on your Kia Soul. 😎
