I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor …

“I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor; Believe me, honey, rich is better.”

 — Sophie Tucker, American singer, 1884-1966

I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, but whether money is abundant, I’ve always been a do-it-yourself person. I’ve paid others to do what I was capable of doing lots of times, because I was too busy with other things, or not interested enough to take it on, or just lazy. Quite often, I experience that those who should be able to do a better job than me (professionals, for example) actually do not, and I wind up wishing I had done it! Maybe this has happened to you?

Now, I’m not talking about cutting my own hair or changing my own oil … I’m just saying that when something is broken and needs fixing, there’s a whole decision process that comes into play for me, and some do-it-yourself element of my makeup kicks in.

For example: My favorite laptop began to show some problems with some of the connectors, like the docking station connector and the network cable connection. I was told by a technician on the phone that this was certainly a problem with the motherboard itself, and that replacing it was prohibitively expensive; better to buy a new laptop. (for those who are wondering, the motherboard is THE main circuit board of the computer, onto which eveything else is mounted or connected somehow … it’s like the frame of your car … without it, there IS no car!

New laptop? OK, sounds like fun! Except we recently got Cynthia a new Dell laptop, and it has had no end of trouble. My good OLD Dell has been a trusty workhorse, so tossing it out didn’t seem all that attractive to me.

Instead, I found some stuff on the Web to tell me how to take apart and reassemble my Dell. Then I bought an identical model on eBay that had a cracked video diplay, but otherwise was good, and I paid about … well, less than half the cost of the motherboard alone. It even came with extra batteries and all kinds of other goodies. I then swapped MY hard drive and monitor into that computer, and now I have my good old Dell back, working like it should! So far, so good. DIY isn’t always so easy … but it’s nice when it is!

To those who say they couldn’t do that, I say: I thought I couldn’t either. But when you jump in, you (usually) find out you can. And thank goodness for that, or we’d all still live in caves!