I am a real DIY girl. I always try to do everything by myself. This has caused me no end of trouble in all areas of life. Luckily, today I finally realize that, for some tasks, you simply need to hire a professional. These were my biggest DIY mistakes.
Accounting
I ran a small travel agency and one day I decided to fire my accountant and start doing all accounting tasks by myself. In the beginning, everything worked fine. I was doing my own payroll, managing cash flow and processing W-2 forms. Since I’m not too skillful in reading tax laws, I made just a single mistake in W-2 IRS form and didn’t file one part of my taxes. This lead to harsh 5% penalty fee, interest and degradation of my credit report.
Web design and website administration
I thought that running a website isn’t much different from running a blog on Blogger or Tumblr. I’ve quickly learned how to use WordPress, and have built a small business website. Then my website got hacked and my hosting company technicians charged me several hundred dollars for deleting spam and malware. They’ve found all kinds of junk, from ’.txt’ files in Mandarin to regular Trojans conveniently ’hidden’ under ‘trojan.exe’ file names. This painful experience taught me to either commit more time to learning web design and web administration tricks or to hire professionals for these tasks. Apparently web administrator’s job doesn’t only include adding posts and choosing the right headers, but it also requires you to follow website’s database on cPanel, review file changes, edit file codes etc.Divorce
My preoccupation with various DIY projects angered my husband, and soon he filed for divorce. Since I’m a DIY kind a girl, I decided to represent myself during the process. I read thousands of ‘How to’ articles in order to discover all secrets of divorce litigation and use them against my husband and his pretentious lawyer. The process was long and complex and in the end I became the proud owner of my DIY toolbox, while my husband got our house, big screen TV and Gizmo, our cute Labrador Retriever. If you’re thinking about filing for divorce in Oregon, you should definitely hire a competent divorce lawyer.Flooring
Soon after my divorce, I took a new mortgage. I’ve bought a wonderful bachelorette condo in high rise building. Then I decided to fix the floor in my new castle. It had an old parquet floor, with few slats missing. I decided to replace it with engineered oak flooring. I made a huge mistake in the finishing phase, which took away the oak look and made the boards look laminated. On top of all this, I mixed wrong stain so boards’ color now varies from dark brown to grayish. I’ll never do my own flooring again!
Kitchen renovation
My bachelorette pad also required a large scale kitchen renovation. I bought some new expensive tools, including a PVC pipe fitter. I’ve only made one mistake during the whole process. One pipe in the wall behind the kitchen sink didn’t fit well, which caused a large scale flooding in the apartment below. Since I’m not a big fan of home insurance I needed to pay several thousand dollars for damages.Complex automobile repair
I’m a skillful self-thought car mechanic. Ok, that is kind of an overstatement, but I am one of those girls who know how to replace a tire and change the oil. My ’elaborate’ knowledge in car maintenance led me to believe that I’m an expert in car repair and that with the help of Google Search and universal wrench I can make my 2014 Toyota Camry fly. Once I decided to do a brake job. I took the wheel off, took brakes apart and resurfaced the rotor, but I didn’t have the right tool for resetting the piston back to caliper. Then I needed to pay the towing bill and pay more than $1,000 to car mechanics for replacing the brakes and the caliper. On top of all this, I was left carless for three days.
Bankruptcy
I spent so much time on my DIY projects that I completely neglected my travel agency. Some of my previous employees used that and have opened their own office in the neighborhood. They were much more competitive (plus, they hired a professional accountant) and soon I filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I thought that liquidation of my business would be a piece of cake, so I decided not to hire a bankruptcy lawyer. Bankruptcy is intimidating and time-consuming process. I filled out thousands of forms, attended hearings and spend several weeks in researching bankruptcy laws. In the end of the process, I faced a lawsuit and none of my debts were discharged.
Unfortunately I’m a girl who learns from her own mistakes. In today’s world many people follow DIY principle, which is great, but only for tasks they are sure they can do by themselves. Sometimes hiring a professional for more complicated tasks really pays off.
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