By Colleen Rothe

This past holiday weekend my husband fixed his Google phone, a kid’s dirt bike, a dishwasher, a CD player, and the defrost on one of our vehicles.

We did a quick add up – just rough estimates – and his handy skills likely saved us about $1,540. No small potatoes. And, no, you may not borrow him. Although, I might let you hire him…

But you can borrow his father’s philosophy, which was dutifully passed along to him and now is slowly moving to my own children.

Teach your children not to be afraid to fix things. Give them tool kits. Make them learn how to change a tire on a car as part of their driver’s education. Instill in them the beauty of being able to solder a poorly manufactured wire together to get a switch working again.

Granted, sometimes when you’re stressed about the fact that the garbage disposal jammed up when you’ve got the entire neighborhood coming over for a barbecue, it can be tough to say, “Hey there Lilly, let me show you some troubleshooting steps to unclog the disposal.” But that little extra effort will likely help Lilly realize that even more complex projects, like replacing the old and too small disposal, aren’t really that tough. It’s like everything else in life; you take it a little bit at a time and step by step.

Also, don’t pigeon hole them into gender roles when it comes to teaching them do-it-yourself (and thereby money-saving) skills. Teach your 13-year-old son how to sew a button. Teach your 11-year-old daughter how to do maintenance on the lawn mower. You may just end up with extra time on your hands down the road to teach them more stuff, or just have money to take them to the movies.

For too often it has been seen as chic and acceptable to just pay someone to do it. The attitude has been that you don’t need to know how to change your own oil because you can just pay someone to do it. But in the New Depression, old ideals pay off. Changing the oil in both our vehicles would cost about $160 at the local Jiffy Lube (yes, it’s about $80 a car – one needs fully synthetic the other needs high-mileage oil). But because I can do it myself (my hubby’s not the only skilled one in the household), it costs us about $30 for the oil and about $20 for the used-oil disposal fee. That’s $110 saved.

I love my auto service, but the only time I’ve used them is when I got a flat on a deserted mountain road, in the rain, just as the sun was going down. But I can jump start my own car and when the neighbors’ batteries die in the middle of winter, guess who they come to. Okay, maybe that’s a side effect that’s less desirable. But it shows that it’s a well-needed skill. An auto service call to jump-start the battery because you left your lights on can run about $80 (provided you don’t have the annual service via AAA or some other provider).

I watched my neighbor lay his own pavers bricks for a walkway next to his driveway this weekend. The job was quoted to him as $1,600 in labor alone. Not including the paving stones, sand, etc. He spent about $300 and a weekend in the sun. And he’ll likely be putting the $1,300 he saved towards his fall hunting trip. I just wish he’d had shown either his daughter or son how to do it too. But that’s an easy job that you can do yourself and pass the skill along to your children.

We all want our children to do better than we did. Part of that starts with teaching them as many handy skills as possible. When my daughter brought to me a project where she turned an old leg of denim pants into a neck pillow for her bed, I knew the philosophy was being passed down.

Right now, I need to go help the hubby with a broken chair. When we fix that, it’ll be another $100 in our pockets, which will likely be spent on college tuition down the road.