When Do It Yourself Becomes a Don't

My frugality has helped me to become a DIYer–that’s a do-it-yourselfer. Instead of paying someone to lay a patio or demo our upstairs bathroom, my husband and I did it ourselves. I also handle my own gardening and lawn mowing (when I had a lawn), and I’ve learned how to make my own laundry detergent. (FYI, that DIY laundry detergent page continues to be the most popular on this blog.)

While DIY is a great way to save money and learn some new skills, I’ve found out the hard way that sometimes with do it yourself, you should think don’t do it yourself. The New York Times recently ran a story called “Even to Save Cash, Don’t Try This at Home.” It was an article about homeowners who attempted to save money by trying DIY plumbing or car repairs. Good idea in theory, terrible idea in reality. Not only did these folks screw things up so badly, but then they ended up paying twice as much to fix the original problem and then the havoc they’d wreaked.

Sadly, this is exactly what happened to me a few weeks ago. I had come up with this hare-brained scheme to make tie-dyed t-shirts for my daughter’s basketball team. I wanted to make these shirts because the girls didn’t have any alternate jerseys. I figured with cheap shirts from the craft store, some rubber bands and tie dye, plus iron-on numbers to use on the back of the shirt, how hard could it be to make these shirts?

Pretty hard, as it turned out. Have you heard of Murphy’s Law? Yeah, well that pretty much summed up my tie-dye t-shirt project.

In addition to ruining the initial set of shirts, first with the iron-on numbers (which, by the way, don’t adhere to fabric after it’s been tie-dyed) and then with numbers that I used a stencil and spray fabric paint to apply (it looked like a graffiti artist gone bad), I just wouldn’t accept defeat and kept trying to come up with better ways to get those damn numbers on the shirt.

So I tie-dyed a second set of shirts (spent $20 extra for more shirts and tie-dye) and then used computer paper to print out a new set of iron-on numbers. (The original iron-on numbers where store bought.) I never got the chance to try out the computer-generated iron-on numbers, because I melted the paper in my laser printer. Then because I didn’t learn, I tried to use my desktop copier to print them out, and I melted the paper in that machine, too.

At this point, I’d ruined the following:

• Six t-shirts
• An HP LaserJet printer
• A Xerox desktop copier

But wait, the devastation didn’t end there. Because I ended up having to dye another set of shirts, I got impatient and put two pots on the stove so I could boil two batches at once. Guess what? Once you use tie dye in a pot you can’t use them to cook anymore. So in addition to the two expensive pieces of office equipment and the shirts I’d ruined, now I could add to my disaster list the following:

• Pasta pot
• Stock pot

In the end I brought the t-shirts to a professional printing shop for the numbers. For $6 a shirt, this professional was able to put the numbers on in about five minutes.

Why didn’t I call the pros in after the first screw up? Because I really thought that in my attempt to do things DIY, I would save money. But my DIY became a DIY don’t. I’ve yet to tally up all of the damage, at least as far as my office equipment is concerned. And I’m not sure I want to know.

But the next time you’re considering trying something DIY and things start to go wrong? Cut your losses and call in the pros.