I took the first nice car I bought three years after I got my first job to the dealer to replace brakes. They charged me $550 for it. After that I taught myself how to fix things, starting with cars, plumbing, drywall, electrical and each and every thing in my daily use. I haven't paid for any repairs or upgrades to my house or my cars in over 10 years. I invested in tools and educating myself rather than pay someone else.
I can now fix anything and everything that I use daily.
I paid a company to buy furniture from IKEA that I selected, deliver it, assemble it and get rid of all the cardboards and waste. I just sat there for three hours and everything was done. Best money I spent.
I also did the same while moving to a new home. I paid the mover to do everything, dismantle beds and furniture, pack everything, then assemble everything in the new property. I didn't feel the pain of moving at all.
I get that sometimes saving money and learning something new like fixing cars is a good thing. But as a 45 years old, spending money to get peace of mind and reduce stress has become the priority for me now.
I follow this as well. It's not simply peace of mind. I have books to read, videos to watch, code to write, newbies to mentor, and kids to play with. There are two days in a weekend and the worst thing I can do is something I don't enjoy, which won't improve my salary in the future.
For me it started because of money, but then it became a hobby. Besides, I can go for an oil change and have everything done for me. However, it's fun researching about different oils, finding a best price online, getting it shipped and then doing the oil change with my young kid. I consider it nice father/son activity. Having my son learn about things is a bonus.
Similarly, when I finished some unfinished part of the basement, I planned it with my kid, went to Menards to buy drywall, picked a color, painted together. He got a sense of accomplishment and so did I.
I can see your point. I’m currently fitting new doors in my house and teaching myself how to do it. It’s a pain in the backside however, but it’s satisfying and I feel a sense of pride every time I open and close the door to go to the bathroom. I did that!
Yep. I am writing code professionally for long time, so that pride and sense of accomplishment is hard to come by. But fixing anything, even small, gives me that satisfaction every time I use it.
I used to enjoy taking/debating/joking around with my co-workers while I worked in the office. We used to spend hours talking about football or politics or stock market.
Now that I am home, I found other things to do. Like staring out of the window, reading reddit/HN, taking a quick nap or cook something to eat.
It's not so bad. I don't miss people, I don't miss co-workers.
I would be surprised if anyone has enough resources or willingness to do that for every open source package they are using. For companies that go through auditing, they can CTA by relying on products like Nexus IQ.
Learning becomes harder as one ages, I think. Concentrating also becomes harder with so many distractions.
I think best way to learn anything computer related is to make something. I started learning docker, I took my projects and containerized them. That way I learned what I needed in the order that I needed. Makes it much easier to learn than just listening to lectures in monotonic voices or reading books.
I can now fix anything and everything that I use daily.